The Milne Townsite, commonly referred to as Milnes, is an abandoned community in
Strathy Township
Strathy Township is a square-shaped geographic township comprising a portion of the municipality of Temagami in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is used for geographic purposes, such as land surveying and natural resource explorations. At least fou ...
, municipality of
Temagami
Temagami, formerly spelled as Timagami, is a municipality in northeastern Ontario, Canada, in the Nipissing District with Lake Temagami at its heart.
The Temagami region is known as ''n'Daki Menan'', the homeland of the area's First Nations commu ...
,
Nipissing District
Nipissing District is a district in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1858. The district seat is North Bay.
In 2016, the population was 83,150. The land area is ; the population density was , making it o ...
in
northeastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, Canada, located on the north shore of
Link Lake, just south of the Milne-Sherman Road, and about north of the town of Temagami. It covered about 3.5% of the town of Temagami and had 40 residents.
History
The Milne Townsite was constructed to support the Milne sawmill, which in turn was operated by the Milne Lumber Company. In 1990, the province of Ontario bought and closed the mill in an effort to ease tensions concerning logging (see
Red Squirrel Road
Red Squirrel Road, also called the Red Squirrel logging road and formerly called the Johns-Manville Road, is a logging road located within the Municipality of Temagami, Nipissing District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It runs from Whitefish Ba ...
).
Operation of the sawmill ceased and 150 people lost their jobs.
During this time the municipality of Temagami announced that another sawmill would be constructed sometime in the future.
Sherman Mine, a large iron ore mine west of the townsite, also stopped mining operations during the following year. Before operations ceased in 1990, the Milne sawmill used 32% of wood in the Temagami region.
The houses and sawmill that once stood in the area no longer exist, but remnants include cement pads and cement pillars. In the 2000s, the Temagami Forest Products white birch sawmill was constructed where the Milne sawmill was located.
Its formation resulted in 62 jobs for the community.
Geology
Adjacent to the Milne sawmill site is a band of fine to coarse grained
pyroclastic
Pyroclastic rocks (derived from the el, πῦρ, links=no, meaning fire; and , meaning broken) are clastic rocks composed of rock fragments produced and ejected by explosive volcanic eruptions. The individual rock fragments are known as pyroc ...
material part of the
Temagami Greenstone Belt
The Temagami Greenstone Belt (TGB) is a small 2.7 billion year old greenstone belt in the Temagami region of Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It represents a feature of the Superior craton, an ancient and stable part of the Earth's lithosphere ...
. The pyroclastics are prolonged, smooth to subangular with compositions ranging from
rhyolitic
Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...
to
pumice
Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicular vol ...
ous and are generally no more than to in size.
[
] Because the pyroclastics are parallel to the
Link Lake Deformation Zone
The Link Lake Deformation Zone, also known as the Link Lake Zone of Deformation and the Link Lake Shear Zone, is a zone of deformation in Strathy Township of Temagami, Ontario, Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provi ...
, they contain a well-preserved foliation.
References
{{reflist
External links
3548069 – Temagami, geographic codes and localities, 2006
Strathy Township