Grant is an

unincorporated place An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

, former railway point and now a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

in the Unorganized North Part of

Cochrane District Cochrane District is a district and census division in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1921 from parts of Timiskaming and Thunder Bay districts. In 2021, the district's population was 77,963, with a l ...

in northeastern

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 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, located east of

Nakina, Ontario Nakina is a community in the Town of Greenstone in the Thunder Bay District in Northern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately north of Geraldton, located along the Canadian National Railway. The origins of the town were initially support of the ra ...

History

The town came into being with the construction of the

National Transcontinental Railway The National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) was a historic railway between Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada. Much of the line is now operated by the Canadian National Railway. The Grand Trunk partnership The completion o ...

(NTR) in 1913. It was established as a

divisional point In Canada and also in the United States, a divisional point (or division point) is a local operational headquarters for a railway. Divisional points are significant in railway maintenance of way operations. Especially historically, they could be the ...

between the Grant Subdivision, leading west to the next divisional point of Armstrong, and the Hearst Subdivision, District 2, leading east to the next divisional point of Hearst. The National Transcontinental Railway was in length, from

Moncton, New Brunswick Moncton (; ) is the most populous city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The city has earned the nickname "Hub City" because ...

, to

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

. The last spike of the NTR was driven at Grant on November 17, 1913, west of Moncton.This information is suspect. The November 1913 issue of Canadian and Marine World makes reference to a November 17, 1913 press dispatch from Cochrane, Ontario which states that the last section of steel on the NTR was laid 200 miles East of Cochrane near Nellie Lake. The town of Grant lost its importance as a railway divisional point following the 1924 completion of the Longlac-Nakina Cut-Off. The

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

, which had assumed control of both the National Transcontinental Railway and the

Canadian Northern The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway , the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton. Mani ...

railway, built this new section of line to connect the two transcontinental main lines. At that time most of the buildings were removed to the new divisional point at Nakina at Mile 15.9 of the former Grant Sub-Division. The portion of the former NTR from Hearst to Nakina became the Pagwa Sub-Division, with Grant located at mile 125.1, between the railway points of Opemisha to the west and Jobrin to the east. By 1960, this section track was part of a marginal secondary main line, with little in the way of through freight, or passenger traffic. A section of this line between Nakina and

Calstock Calstock () is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and a large village in south east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, on the border with Devon. The village is situated on the River Tamar south west of Tavistock, Devon, Tavistock and no ...

, the route through Grant, was abandoned in 1986. A now abandoned airfield, created by the

Department of National Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divided ...

in the mid-1930s in part using 4,281 person-days of unemployment relief labour, lies to the south of the place. The airfield became in the late 1930s part of a string of emergency landing sites for

Trans-Canada Air Lines Trans-Canada Air Lines (also known as TCA in English, and Trans-Canada in French) was a Canadian airline that operated as the country's flag carrier, with corporate headquarters in Montreal, Quebec. Its first president was Gordon Roy McGregor. ...

(today

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada, by size and passengers carried. Air Canada is headquartered in the borough of Saint-Laurent in the city of Montreal. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled and cha ...

) to support their transcontinental flight operations. Transcribed from

References

{{authority control Ghost towns in Northern Ontario Communities in Cochrane District Railway towns in Ontario