Nairn and Hyman is a
township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...
in the
Canadian province
Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...
of
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 ...
. The township, located in the
Sudbury District
The Sudbury District is a district in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1894 from townships of eastern Algoma District and west Nipissing District.
The overwhelming majority of the district (about 92%) is ...
, borders on the southwestern city limits of
Greater Sudbury
Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the List of the largest cities and to ...
west of the city's
Walden
''Walden'' (; first published in 1854 as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part ...
district. The township had a population of 342 in the
Canada 2016 Census
The 2016 Canadian census was an enumeration of Canadian residents, which counted a population of 35,151,728, a change from its 2011 population of 33,476,688. The census, conducted by Statistics Canada, was Canada's seventh quinquennial census ...
.
The township contains the communities of Nairn Centre and Prospect Hill.
History
Indigenous people have inhabited the Lake Huron north shore and Manitoulin area for millennia, and historically used the nearby
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
(''Skiminitigan'' in
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
) and
Vermilion
Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since ancient history, antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its correspondi ...
rivers as transportation and economic corridors which connected
Lake Huron
Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...
's
North Channel North Channel may refer to:
*North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland)
*North Channel (Ontario), body of water along the north shore of Lake Huron, Canada
*North Channel, Hong Kong
*Canal du Nord, France
{{geodis ...
with the interior to the north (through the Spanish) and through the river system around
Lake Wanapitei
Lake Wanapitei (also known as Lake Wahnapitae) occupies a meteorite crater in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. It is located near the much larger Sudbury meteorite crater but they are not related.
The crater is in diameter and the age is estimated t ...
, ultimately to the Ottawa River (through the Vermilion).
The non-indigenous communities in the township were a result of the
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
's development of its Algoma extension from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie in the 1880s. The first two buildings in the town were its CPR station and
section house A section house is a building or house-like structure located near or next to a section of railroad used for housing railroad workers, or for the storing and maintenance of equipment for a section of railroad. Section houses were used mainly from th ...
, which housed CPR employees.
During this time, the railway station was known as Nelson, and the nearby town known as Nelsonville to local people. The unofficial community around the station grew rapidly, and by the 1890s had got its first general store at the intersection of Hall and Front streets, which was built out of logs. After a few years, however, early attempts were made to create an official township under the name Nairn, which was chosen after a railway engineer's hometown of
Nairn
Nairn (; gd, Inbhir Narann) is a town and royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is an ancient fishing port and market town around east of Inverness, at the point where the River Nairn enters the Moray Firth. It is the tradit ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
.
In 1896, the township was officially chartered as a municipality formed from the geographic townships of Nairn, Lorne, and Hyman, and a
reeve and municipal councillors were elected. In lieu of a town hall, the municipal council initially met at the town's
Foresters
A forester is a person who practises forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including ecological restoration and management of protected areas. Foresters manage forests to ...
hall until 1905, then a local hotel (which was owned by the first town clerk) until 1909, and afterward at the town jail; the Foresters hall was destroyed by a fire around 1916.
Today, the town hall and community centre building is located on MacIntyre Street, on the site of the former town jail.
Within the next decade, Nairn's three churches were constructed: All Saints
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
Church in 1897,
St Jude Roman Catholic Church around 1900, and the local
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
, later
United
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
church, in 1904. St Jude, located on MacIntyre Street, was demolished in the early 1970s and its site is presently used for the town's fire hall.
The United church stands at the intersection of Smith Street and Highway 17, but has been abandoned for decades. The town's historical religious relations have been described as generally harmonious,
though an
Orange Hall Orange Hall may refer to:
;in Ireland
* Orange Institution
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protes ...
was constructed in 1925 by Levi Pomfrey, an early English settler from Cambridgeshire who had been the town reeve in 1903. The Orange Order (or 'Orangemen') would conduct annual marches on July 12, the anniversary of the
Battle of Aughrim
The Battle of Aughrim ( ga, Cath Eachroma) was the decisive battle of the Williamite War in Ireland. It was fought between the largely Irish Jacobite army loyal to James II and the forces of William III on 12 July 1691 (old style, equivalent ...
, where in 1691 the
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
forces of
William of Orange defeated the Catholic
Jacobite forces of
James Stuart in their struggle for control of Britain and Ireland. Orange marches would typically end at the Roman Catholic church.
In 1907, the town fathers began to petition the Ontario provincial government to fund a road bridge across the Spanish River, as a great deal of lumbering activity was taking place on the other side. This was denied, but in 1908 a bridge was funded and constructed by the Graves Bigwood Company, which also built a set of stables and a barracks and cookhouse across the river for teamsters who were involved in hauling lumber. Graves Bigwood made the decision to relocate their office there from
Wahnapitae, and the area became known as the "Headquarters". At the time,
McKerrow had not yet come to exist, and the nearest settlement to the west was Espanola. This bridge became a component of the "Soo Road", which ultimately stretched from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie as an unreliable patchwork of local roads; this would be improved again around 1923 by the
Department of Northern Development
The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is the provincial ministry of the Government of Ontario that is responsible for transport infrastructure and related law in Ontario. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, when the pro ...
. Around 1931, the original bridge across the Spanish was washed away in a flood, and was replaced by a rudimentary ferry service that connected what is now Ferry Street with Headquarters Hill Road. Despite renewed petitions for a new bridge to replace the ferry, the service continued to operate until the late 1960s before discontinuing and effectively severing the connection between Nairn proper and the Headquarters area, which today is connected to Nairn via Highway 17 and Sand Bay Road over a causeway.
During the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, 35 local men and boys enlisted, which was around 12% of the town's population at the time. Only one was killed:
Cpl Roy Harmon, who died in 1918 and is buried at the cemetery in
Nœux-les-Mines
Nœux-les-Mines () is a Communes of France, commune in the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.
Geography
Nœux-les-Mines is situated some south of Béthune and southwest of Lille, at the junc ...
.
18 or 19 enlisted in the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, with two killed:
L/Cpl Lloyd Martin (
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada
The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's), or A & SH of C, is a Primary Reserve Scottish regiment, Highland infantry regiment of the Canadian Forces, based at John Weir Foote, John W. Foote VC Armoury in Hamilton, Ontario ...
), who was killed in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
in 1945 and is buried in the
Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery
Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery and Memorial ( French:''Le Cimetière de Guerre Canadien Groesbeek'', Dutch:''Canadese Oorlogsbegraafplaats Groesbeek'') is a Second World War Commonwealth War Graves Commission military war grave cemetery, locate ...
,
and
Flying Officer James Smith (
Royal Canadian Air Force
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...
), who was killed in 1944 and is buried in the
,
Harrogate
Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor at ...
,
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
With its strong base as a
railway town
A railway town, or railroad town, is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site.
North America
During the construction of the First transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, temporar ...
, Nairn developed a significant logging industry which employed many people, and the population grew quickly. Multiple logging companies had operations in the town, with warehouses next to the town's CPR siding, where companies would distribute supplies to logging camps throughout the area; the logs themselves were moved using the Spanish and Vermilion rivers. The town's growth, however, began to slow during the 1920s, as by 1923 most of the pine in the area had been logged out. Logging operations shifted elsewhere, putting up to 1000 men out of work, and causing the town's population to steeply decline.
During the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, a
relief office was opened, and many residents survived on government relief payments. Several public works projects were undertaken to create temporary employment, such as replacement of the town's original wooden sidewalks with cement, as well as road improvements. This road work improved access to the town, and was eventually followed by the construction of the current Highway 17 around 1947.
The town's fortunes changed by the late 1940s, as lumber industrialist
Benjamin F. Merwin under his
Pineland Timber Company moved into the area, building a modern sawmill and landing lucrative contracts for mining timbers with companies such as
Inco
Vale Canada Limited (formerly Vale Inco, CVRD Inco and Inco Limited; for corporate branding purposes simply known as "Vale" and pronounced in English) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale. Vale's nickel mining and ...
. The mill was quickly upgraded and expanded throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, and Merwin appointed his son, Bud, as superintendent of Nairn operations. In 1962, the Pineland company was sold to
KVP and Inco.
Another raft of changes occurred in the 1960s under KVP management. Previously, the mill had been operated seasonally in the summer, but transitioned to year-round operations. The mill's waste operations, which involved simply burning mill waste at a dump site near the town, caused significant air pollution and environmental degradation to the area, and to alleviate these issues, a modern burner was installed north of the mill. In 1962, the mill's workforce was unionized under
Lumber and Sawmill Worker's Union (LSWU) Local 2537, and standardized pay grades were established. All of these changes created a stronger sense of permanence for the mill, and economic stability for the town.
Things would continue to change at the mill throughout the next few decades. In 1969, KVP was purchased by
Brown Forest Industry
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model use ...
, which sold off its Espanola and area operations to the
E.B. Eddy Company, and E.B. Eddy once again modernized and upgraded the mill, increasing the output from in 1980 to in 1984. By 1995, the mill had a workforce of 317 and produced of lumber. Today the mill still operates and is owned by
EACOM Timber Corporation.
Over these decades from the 1940s to the 1990s, the town itself changed significantly as well: road travel had begun to replace railway travel as the Canadian Pacific Railway phased out passenger transportation, and the centre of activity in the community shifted south, with the original area of settlement suffering a long-term decline. From two stopping trains in each direction in 1943 (with one western route turning south at McKerrow to serve Espanola and Manitoulin and the other continuing further west to Sault Ste. Marie),
passenger service was reduced to a single train per direction per day by 1970,
and
Greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
bus service grew in popularity during the 1950s.
Early town plans in 1897 had called for a Hammond Road to run along the path of the CPR
tote road
Tote may refer to:
Places
* Tote, Skye, a crofting township on the Isle of Skye
Container
* Tote bag, a carry bag that is often used to carry items too large for a purse or handbag; sometimes also sold as a reusable shopping bag
* IBC tote or ...
and cross the Spanish at a similar location to the CPR's rail bridge. This was finally realized with the construction of the new Ontario Highway 17 around 1947, the culmination of about a decade of road construction and public works projects in the area. The new highway was routed south of the town's main commercial area, and facilitated a slow drift of the centre of the town away from the original core formed around the CPR station and Hall's general store. Some businesses relocated to new highway-adjacent locations, while others closed one by one, and there was a gradual shift away from hotels, taverns, and small retail, toward garages and gas stations, as truck freight became more frequent along the new highway, and larger centres like Espanola and Sudbury became more accessible for residents. The possibilities of car commuting depressed demand for temporary accommodation and therefore decreased the customer base for the town's hotels and boarding houses, as workers could now commute from larger urban centres, and seasonal industries, which heavily utilized temporary accommodations, declined. However, a new residential subdivision was built south of the highway in the 1960s as the town experienced a population boom due to an increase in the workforce at the lumber mill.
Passenger rail service ended altogether in 1976, and the
Nairn railway station
, symbol_location = gb
, symbol = rail
, image = Nairn railway station, August 2013.JPG
, caption = The station in 2013
, borough = Nairn, Highland
, country = Scotland
, c ...
was demolished sometime after.
The focus of development in the town in recent decades has increasingly been on improving infrastructure and local services in the hopes of attracting new residents, and functioning largely as a residential community with significant industrial activity throughout the township relative to its population, with some remaining commercial activity remaining in the form of the truck stop.
On November 22, 2021, Laurier Falldien resigned as the town's mayor, citing opposition to
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
vaccine mandates.
Demographics
In the
2021 Census of Population conducted by
Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), 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 cultur ...
, Nairn and Hyman 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.
Economy
Since shortly after its settlement, Nairn's primary economic activity has been logging and lumber milling, and the lumber mill there is today owned and operated by
EACOM Timber Corporation. There was some minor agricultural activity in the township in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but this has since declined. The
Nairn Falls Dam and Generating Plant
The Nairn Falls Dam and Generating Plant (or Huronian Power Plant) is a hydroelectric dam and power plant located on the Spanish River (Ontario), Spanish River to the northeast of the community of Nairn in Nairn and Hyman Township, Ontario, Canad ...
, built in 1915, was once a source of employment for some people in the town, but has since become almost entirely automated.
The town is home to two local businesses involved in construction and transportation, OCL Trucking and Excavating and T. Bell Transport, which both operate gravel pits in the area.
Nairn's historic commercial area, centred around the railway station and the intersection of Front and Hall Streets, once featured three hotels, three general stores, two barbershops, two pool halls, a boarding house, a butcher shop, a men's furnishing store, and a post office.
It began to decline after the first half of the 20th century, and the former commercial buildings have mostly been converted into private homes. The last surviving business establishment in this area is the post office.
As the old commercial area declined, a new southern commercial area began to develop starting in the late 1940s, after the new Highway 17 route was constructed around 1947. This began with the relocation of an existing business, Al's Inn, from the junction of MacIntyre and Minto Streets to a new location where Front Street intersected with the new Highway 17. This business changed names and owners a number of times, as Bob's BA Service Station from 1952 to 1979, the Rainbow Diner from 1979, then the Rainbow Truck Stop, and now Jeremy's Truck Stop.
As well, the site of the former town park, also adjacent to the new Highway 17, was redeveloped into a Texaco gas station. The site was later redeveloped again as the Busy Bee, a large
roadhouse-style restaurant which opened in 1994. After a fire and financial problems, this restaurant closed and is currently abandoned. A new general store, Laurier's Convenience Store, was constructed on Smith Street south of the highway,
but was only open briefly and is now closed.
Today, the primary commercial area in the township is centred around Highway 17 and lies to the southwest of the residential area, and includes Jeremy's Truck Stop (and adjacent Esso station), OCL Trucking and Excavating, and T. Bell Transport.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Road
bypasses most of residential Nairn to the south, though there are a number of highway-based businesses that serve travellers. The old Highway 17 route has largely been converted into municipal roads and runs directly through the town. Upon crossing the municipal boundary into
Greater Sudbury
Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the List of the largest cities and to ...
, it becomes .
Rail
The
Huron Central Railway (HCRY) operates an active freight line that passes through the old downtown area of Nairn, which is now largely residential. This line is also known as the CPR
Webbwood Subdivision, as the HCRY operates along the line on a lease from the CPR. Remnants of the now-abandoned
Algoma Eastern Railway
The Algoma Eastern Railway was a railway in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Originally known as the Manitoulin and North Shore Railway (M&NS) with a charter dating back to 1888, the full mainline was opened to traffic in 1913, serving the area al ...
are visible in the area, as it passed by
Vale
A vale is a type of valley.
Vale may also refer to:
Places Georgia
* Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region
Norway
* Våle, a historic municipality
Portugal
* Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municipali ...
's
Nairn Falls Dam and Generating Plant
The Nairn Falls Dam and Generating Plant (or Huronian Power Plant) is a hydroelectric dam and power plant located on the Spanish River (Ontario), Spanish River to the northeast of the community of Nairn in Nairn and Hyman Township, Ontario, Canad ...
, then through the north of Nairn (with a station that was adjacent to Ferry Street), before dipping to the south to cross over the CPR line west of the town. In the mid-2010s, the Coalition for Algoma Passenger Trains campaigned for reintroduction of passenger service on the Huron Central line through the town.
Bus
Greyhound Canada
Greyhound Canada Transportation ULC began as a local British Columbia bus line in the early 1920s, expanded across most of Canada, and became a subsidiary of the US Greyhound in 1940.
In 2018, Greyhound pulled out of Western Canada, preserving ...
once operated intercity bus service to Nairn starting in at least the 1960s,
but this service was permanently cancelled in 2018.
In 2018,
Ontario Northland
The Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC), or simply Ontario Northland, is a Crown agency of the Government of Ontario responsible for providing transportation services for passengers and goods in northern Ontario. It reports to ...
announced a major expansion of its motor coach services west of Sudbury, which included a
flag stop
In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, st ...
at Nairn Centre. Passengers may board buses headed toward
Sault Ste. Marie, or
Sudbury Sudbury may refer to:
Places Australia
* Sudbury Reef, Queensland
Canada
* Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes)
** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal e ...
.
Walking and cycling
A segment of the
Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, which is also a part of the
Trans Canada Trail
The Trans Canada Trail, officially named The Great Trail between September 2016 and June 2021, is a cross-Canada system of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, Pacific to the A ...
, runs through the township.
In the west end it follows a
paved shoulder along Highway 17, then has an on-road section following Old Nairn Road, Minto Street, and McIntyre Street, then continues along once entering Greater Sudbury.
Utilities
The community has a piped water system, which was installed in 1995.
Healthcare
There is a medical clinic and pharmacy in Nairn Centre. The nearest hospital is in Espanola.
Education
Reading Camp
Nairn is historically notable as the place where
Alfred Fitzpatrick, then the local Presbyterian minister, created a Reading Camp in 1899 in order to teach literacy to local lumber workers. This would grow into the Labourer-Teacher movement, where ordinary workers living and working in remote lumber camps and communities would teach literacy to their fellow workers in a peer fashion. This revolutionary educational movement ran counter to many contemporary ideas around education, but was wildly successful and later grew into
Frontier College, a decentralized literacy organization which is now based in Toronto. Fitzpatrick's Reading Camp is today commemorated with a sign placed at the entrance to Nairn Centre along Highway 17.
Public school
A small log schoolhouse was constructed on Front Street by the early settlers in 1895. This schoolhouse was the site of the first town meeting in 1896. In the early years it was known as Rural School No. 1 Nairn and Lorne.
By 1925, the school had sixty students, and the decision was made to hire a second teacher and split the school into two classes, which were initially separated only by a curtain. By 1926, the existing school had been renovated and expanded into a new two-room school, which incorporated parts of the original structure.
This new school featured two entirely separate classrooms, as well as a large basement containing the teachers' room and boys' and girls' play rooms for the students, along with the furnace and coal room. By this time it was known as the Nairn Public School.
By 1965, the school had once again become too small for the student population, so the facilities were again renovated with the addition of a third classroom in the basement, taking the place of the old boys' play area. This would soon change, however, as a new school was constructed and would open in 1966. With its attached gymnasium, the new school was also able to function as a community space.
Soon, however, the school was affected by a wave of school closures and school board amalgamations that began to take place across Northeastern Ontario in the 1960s. In 1966, the school at
Beaver Lake closed, and students there were bused to Nairn Public School, rather than to the R.H. Murray Public School in Whitefish. This caused overcrowding issues, and the gymnasium had to double as a classroom. The student population grew again in 1969 as the school's catchment area grew to include the village of
High Falls, so an expansion to the new building took place. This expansion was completed in 1970, and included two new classrooms, lunch and storage rooms, a principal's office, and a library. However, the lunch room was quickly converted into a kindergarten space, and the storage room became a
special education
Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...
room.
In 1983–84, the school population reached its historic height of over 180 students, but enrollment was beginning to decline. Still, the school was expanded for the final time, to include a new library and principal's office, purpose-built special education room, and a staff room. By its 100th anniversary in 1995, the school population had decreased dramatically, with some areas of the building left in disuse,
and by 1999 the school had closed. The school building is currently abandoned, and students are bused to Espanola.
See also
*
List of townships in Ontario
This is a list of townships in the Canadian province of Ontario. Townships are listed by census division.
Northern Ontario Northeastern Ontario Algoma District
Historical/Geographic Townships
*Abbott
*Aberdeen Additional
*Abigo
*Abotossaway
* ...
*
List of francophone communities in Ontario
This is a list of francophone communities in the Canadian province of Ontario. Municipalities with a high percentage of French-speakers in Ontario are listed.
The provincial average of Ontarians whose mother tongue is French is 4.1%, with a to ...
References
External links
*
{{Sudbury District, Ontario
Municipalities in Sudbury District
Single-tier municipalities in Ontario
Township municipalities in Ontario
Timber industry in Canada