Britt is a community in the
Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
province of
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, located in the unincorporated
township
A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...
of
Wallbridge in the
Parry Sound District
Parry Sound District is a census division of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its boundaries are District of Muskoka to the south, the Sudbury District to the north-northwest, the French River and Lake Nipissing in the north, Nipissing Distri ...
.
The community is located on the north shore of the
Magnetawan River
The Magnetawan River is a long river in Parry Sound District, Ontario, Canada. The river flows 175 km from its source of Magnetawan Lake inside Algonquin Provincial Park to empty into Georgian Bay at the community of Britt, Ontario, Britt on ...
at
Byng Inlet, approximately five kilometres west of
Highway 69, at the end of
Highway 526.
Like its neighbouring community of
Byng Inlet on the south shore, Britt was originally a
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
village, known as Byng Inlet North when the Burton Mill located there in 1880. As the
lumber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
industry in this area had reached its peak, prior to the building of the
CPR between 1903 and 1908, the community on the north shore was established as a port for receiving
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
, required for the railway's
steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...
s. It was after this, that Byng Inlet North was renamed Britt for Thomas Britt, the CPR Superintendent of Fuels.
The community is not an incorporated municipality, but part of the
Unorganized Centre Parry Sound District and is administered by a
local services board.
Local Services Boards, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 737
. Canadian Legal Information Institute.
The village is name-checked in Stompin’ Tom Connors’s song, “Around the Bay and Back Again,” from his 1969 album ''On Tragedy Trail with Stompin’ Tom Connors''.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Britt had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.[
]
References
Communities in Parry Sound District
Designated places in Ontario
Local services boards in Ontario
Magnetawan River
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