Nickel Centre (1996 census population 13,017) was a town in
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 C ...
, Canada, which existed from 1973 to 2000.
It was created as part of the
Regional Municipality of Sudbury
The Regional Municipality of Sudbury was a Regional Municipality that existed in Ontario, Canada, from 1973 to 2000, and was primarily centred on the city of Sudbury. It served as an upper-tier level of municipal government, aggregating municipal ...
. On January 1, 2001, the town and the Regional Municipality were dissolved and amalgamated into the city of
Greater Sudbury. The town is now divided between Wards 7 and 9 on
Greater Sudbury City Council
Greater Sudbury City Council (french: Conseil municipal du Grand Sudbury) is the governing body of the City of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
The council consists of the mayor plus a twelve-person council. The city is divided into twelve wards ...
, and is represented by councillors
Mike Jakubo and Deb McIntosh.
In the
Canada 2011 Census, the Garson-Falconbridge corridor within Nickel Centre was counted as part of the ''population centre'' (or
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...
) of Sudbury, while the census tracts corresponding to the former boundaries of Nickel Centre had a population of 13,232. 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 boundaries of the Sudbury population centre were revised to retain Garson but exclude Falconbridge, while a new population centre was added for Coniston (population 1,814).
Communities
Coniston
Coniston was a part of the geographic Neelon Township, which was named after
Sylvester Neelon
Sylvester Neelon (January 7, 1825 – December 31, 1897) was an Ontario businessman and political figure. He represented Lincoln in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a Liberal member in 1875 and from 1879 to 1886.
He was born in New Yo ...
.
The first settlers in the Coniston area were the Butler family, who arrived in 1902. They were joined by five other families by 1904, who created their own farms. Common crops included hay, rye, and oats.
The
Canadian Northern Railway
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.
Man ...
(a predecessor of the
Canadian National Railway) arrived in 1905, with Coniston lying along its transcontinental line. It was joined in 1908 by the
Canadian Pacific Railway, which constructed a new direct line linking Sudbury and Toronto via Romford Junction. The population had risen to 20 families during this period and settlers requested the establishment of a local post office, which had to be named; the name Neelon was originally considered, but Dennis O'Brien, a local settler who became the first
postmaster, decided on the name Coniston after it was suggested to him by T. Johnson, a railway construction superintendent who had been reading a novel set in the village of
Coniston in the Lake District of England.
The
Mond Nickel Company
The Mond Nickel Company Limited was a United Kingdom-based mining company, formed on September 20, 1900, licensed in Canada to carry on business in the province of Ontario, from October 16, 1900. The firm was founded by Ludwig Mond (1839-1909) to ...
arrived in Coniston in 1913, relocating its smelter operations from the earlier settlement of
Victoria Mines (located west of Sudbury), which swiftly became a
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...
. Coniston was chosen due to its more favourable rail connections and terrain.
As part of the relocation, Mond purchased five family farms totalling , which "brought an end to the agricultural orientation of the community."
Coniston was re-established as a Mond
company town, with many existing company houses being relocated from Victoria Mines, along with the provision of a modern planned town with a street grid, sidewalks, and a water distribution system.
Coniston was subsequently incorporated under the provisions of the Municipal Act by
Ontario Municipal Board
The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) was an independent administrative board, operated as an adjudicative tribunal, in the province of Ontario, Canada. It heard applications and appeals on municipal and planning disputes, as well as other matters sp ...
Order A4741 on January 1, 1934, and remained such until the establishment of regional government. Prior to its annexation into Nickel Centre, the town's mayors were Edgar Taylor Austin (1934–46), Roy Snitch (1947–52), Walter Kilimnik (1953–57), William Evershed (1958-59), Maurice Beauchemin (1960–62) and
Mike Solski (1963-72). Solski, the final mayor of Coniston as an independent town, won election to the mayoralty of the amalgamated town of Nickel Centre in 1972.
Notable residents of Coniston have included hockey players
Neal Martin,
Noel Price
Garry Noel Price (born December 9, 1935) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He played in the National Hockey League with seven teams between 1957 to 1976. He also spent considerable time in the minor American Hockey League d ...
,
Toe Blake
Toes are the digits (fingers) of the foot of a tetrapod. Animal species such as cats that walk on their toes are described as being ''digitigrade''. Humans, and other animals that walk on the soles of their feet, are described as being ''plant ...
,
Jim Fox,
Leo Lafrance,
Andy Barbe and Randy Boyd as well as many other great hockey players. Coniston also includes the smaller neighbourhood of Austin, which may also be known as Old Coniston. This area borders
Highway 17 and is home to a baseball field. The baseball field was abandoned and decommissioned prior to 2000 when Coniston became part of Greater Sudbury.
Falconbridge
The geographic township of Falconbridge was named in the 1880s for
William Glenholm Falconbridge, a justice of the High Court of Ontario. The original settlement in the township was a small
lumber camp
A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where lumberjacks would live and work to fell trees in a particular area. Many ...
.
A significant ore body was discovered in 1902 by
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
near what is now Falconbridge's Centennial Park. The
Edison Ore-Milling Company
The Edison Ore-Milling Company was a venture by Thomas Edison that began in 1881. Edison introduced some significant technological developments to the iron ore milling industry but the company ultimately proved to be unprofitable. Towards the end ...
was unsuccessful in establishing a mining operation, and abandoned his original claim in 1903. The claim reverted to
Crown land until the Longyear Drilling Company bought it in 1911. Longyear subsequently merged with other small mining companies in the area to form the basis of what would ultimately become
Falconbridge Ltd.
Falconbridge Limited was a Toronto, Ontario-based natural resources company with operations in 18 countries, involved in the exploration, mining, processing, and marketing of metal and mineral products, including nickel, copper, cobalt, and plati ...
, although actual mining operations in the community did not begin until 1928, when
Thayer Lindsley purchased the company for $2,500,000 and finally sunk the Falconbridge deposit's first
mine shaft
Shaft mining or shaft sinking is the action of excavating a mine shaft from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. Shallow shafts, typically sunk for civil engineering projects, differ greatly in execution method from ...
the following year.
Falconbridge Ltd. built the Edison Building in 1969 to serve as its head office. Falconbridge Ltd. was taken over by
Swiss mining company
Xstrata
Xstrata plc was an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It was a major producer of coal (and the world's largest exporter of thermal coal), copper, ...
in 2006. In 2007, Xstrata donated the Edison Building to the city to serve as the new home of the municipal
archives
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
.
Falconbridge was incorporated as a town in 1957. The town's first and only
reeve, John Franklin, served until the creation of Nickel Centre in 1973.
A visual and radar
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
incident occurred in the community on November 11, 1975, later reported in a press release by
NORAD. The object was tracked on radar from
CFS Falconbridge and sighted in binoculars, and estimated to be a 100-ft. diameter sphere with craters. Seven
OPP police officers also witnessed the UFO. Some explanations given for the sightings included
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
, clouds, and/or
weather balloons.
Garson
![Garson ON](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Garson_ON.JPG)
The community is named after the geographic township of Garson, named by the Ontario Government in the 1880s for
William Garson, who represented
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
in the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1886 to 1890.
The area was first developed in 1888 as a logging camp, by the Holland and Emery Lumber Company of
East Tawas, Michigan
East Tawas is a city in Iosco County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 2,663 at the 2020 census.
History
The western New York firm Smith, Van Valkenburg, & Company bought land in the area in order to exploit the area's lumber res ...
. In that year this firm constructed a
narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...
logging railway from Wahnapitae, establishing its main operations at Headquarters Lake, near the Garson townsite. Logs from this area were taken to the
Wanapitei River
The Wanapitei River (French: ''Rivière Wanapitei'') is a river in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Great Lakes Basin and is a right tributary of the French River.
The river's source is Scotia Lake, a small lake east of Halfway Lake ...
and
driven to
Lake Huron. Eventually this track was extended north into
Capreol Township.
The
Canadian Northern Railway
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.
Man ...
was built through Garson in 1908.
Garson Mine, which is now owned by
Vale 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 ...
was first developed in 1911 by the
Mond Nickel Company
The Mond Nickel Company Limited was a United Kingdom-based mining company, formed on September 20, 1900, licensed in Canada to carry on business in the province of Ontario, from October 16, 1900. The firm was founded by Ludwig Mond (1839-1909) to ...
. The defunct Kirkwood Mine was also located in Garson.
Skead
Skead is located approximately 25 kilometres northeast of downtown Sudbury, and situated on south shore of
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 to ...
. Home to over 600 year round residents, Skead was settled about 1921 as a
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where 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 (dimensi ...
community, when the Spanish River Lumber Company relocated there from its original mill site, near the mouth of the
Spanish River. It was named by the firm's general manager W. J. Bell, in honour of his late
father-in-law
A parent-in-law is a person who has a legal affinity (law), affinity with another by being the parent of the other's spouse. Many cultures and legal systems impose duties and responsibilities on persons connected by this relationship. A person i ...
, Canadian Senator
James Skead. Skead was a stop on the
Canadian Northern Railway
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.
Man ...
line from
Capreol
Capreol ( ) is a community in the Ontario city of Greater Sudbury. Situated on the Vermilion River (35 mins north of the downtown core), Capreol is the city's northernmost populated area.
From 1918 to 2000, Capreol existed as an independent to ...
to
North Bay, which later became the
Canadian National Railway Alderdale Subdivision
The Canadian National Railway Alderdale Subdivision was a railway line in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It originally opened in 1915 as a part of the Canadian Northern Railway's transcontinental mainline. It connected Brent in the east with Cap ...
,
but rail service declined in the mid-20th century and was eliminated altogether in 1996.
Boland's Bay
Skead's address and telephone service also includes the smaller neighbourhood of Boland's Bay (), a dispersed rural community and unincorporated place,
[ (community)] on the
eponym
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
ous bay
[ (bay)] at the southwestern tip of
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 to ...
. The community was known as Bowlands Bay and the bay as Bowland Bay until 1975 when the present spellings were adopted. However, the old spelling continues on the local street Bowlands Bay Road. Boland's Bay (spelled Bowlands Bay in older timetables) was a
milepoint
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...
on the
Canadian Northern Railway
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.
Man ...
line from
Capreol
Capreol ( ) is a community in the Ontario city of Greater Sudbury. Situated on the Vermilion River (35 mins north of the downtown core), Capreol is the city's northernmost populated area.
From 1918 to 2000, Capreol existed as an independent to ...
to
North Bay, which later became the
Canadian National Railway Alderdale Subdivision
The Canadian National Railway Alderdale Subdivision was a railway line in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It originally opened in 1915 as a part of the Canadian Northern Railway's transcontinental mainline. It connected Brent in the east with Cap ...
,
[ but rail service declined in the mid-20th century and was eliminated altogether in 1996.
]
Wahnapitae
The community takes its name from the Wanapitei River
The Wanapitei River (French: ''Rivière Wanapitei'') is a river in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Great Lakes Basin and is a right tributary of the French River.
The river's source is Scotia Lake, a small lake east of Halfway Lake ...
, which flows through Wahnapitae, and whose name in turn comes from the 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 ...
word ''waanabidebiing'', which means "concave-tooth hapedwater" and describes the shape of 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 to ...
. The correct spelling of the community's name should not be confused with the correct spelling for the water bodies.
The community of Wahnapitae is located east of Sudbury along Highway 17. It was the first settlement to be established in Nickel Centre and was supposed to be the main community within the Sudbury district because it was located along a major waterway. Originally, it was thought that Sudbury would be just a small settlement in the area, but with the discovery of ore and a shift from logging to mining, Sudbury became the focal point of the district and Wahnapitae was relegated to a smaller role.
In the early days of the town, logging was the major industry of the area. Many lumber companies established their operations along the Wanapitei River and the river itself was used to send the harvested logs to Southern Ontario for processing. Workers and their families, as well as various entrepreneurs, established a community along the river bank that was eventually known as Wahnapitae. In its heyday, Wahnapitae was a large, booming community that boasted a number of banks, general stores, clothing stores, hotels, and various other enterprises. It also possessed its own separate school (St. Peter) and public school (Wahnapitae Public School) and even had a water tower and a train station (it was located along the East West main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway).
As the number of viable trees for harvesting dwindled and mining began to take hold, the community of Wahnapitae lost its momentum. Suddenly, people were choosing mining towns over Wahnapitae and eventually the town became a shadow of its former glory. Wahnapitae remained an unorganized township until the amalgamation of the Regional Municipality of Sudbury in 1973 and in 2001, it became part of the City of Greater Sudbury. The town that began as a logging and farming settlement is today mostly a residential community.
The community should not be confused with the Wahnapitae First Nation
The Wahnapitae First Nation ( oj, Wahnapitaeping) is an Ojibway First Nation band government in the Canadian province of Ontario, who primarily reside on the Wahnapitae Indian Reserve No. 11 on the northwestern shore of Lake Wanapitei. The Firs ...
.
Ghost town
Happy Valley
The ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...
of Happy Valley, originally known as Spruce Valley, was first inhabited in 1906 by workers from the nearby mine at Garson. Not wanting to live in a state of dependency in the company town, they built this smaller town of humble shacks with narrow streets. In 1930, the Garson Mine shut down, and the workers were transferred to the mines at Falconbridge.
However, due to temperature inversion
In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to an inversion of the air temperature lapse rate, in which case it is called a temperature inversion. Nor ...
s, the smelter at Falconbridge created severe pollution problems in Happy Valley, as heavy sulphur emissions from the smelter would become trapped in the valley. For years, workers suspected that they were being poisoned by pollution, and these fears were confirmed in the 60s and 70s as society grew more environment
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
-conscious. For several years, the community reached a deal with Falconbridge that the smelter would not operate on days when a north wind was blowing. Eventually the company simply bought out the town, which was entirely abandoned in the late 1960s. Today the valley remains desert-like and dead because of pollution.Ontario Abandoned Places: Happy Valley
/ref>
Transportation
The Greater Sudbury Airport, the city's main airport, is located in Nickel Centre approximately halfway between Falconbridge and Skead, although its official mailing address is in Garson.
Highway 17, the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on ...
, passes through Coniston and Wahnapitae. Highway 17's freeway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...
segment in the 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 ...
area is slated to be expanded through Nickel Centre toward Markstay, along the existing Southwest and Southeast Bypass route and thence on a new alignment past Coniston and Wahnapitae.
References
External links
The Coniston Story
The role of Thomas Edison in the establishment of Falconbridge
at Greater Sudbury Heritage Museums
The Greater Sudbury Museums are a network of four small community history museums in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Three of the four are located on heritage properties in different neighbourhoods within the city, and the fourth is located in ...
History of Nickel Centre
at Greater Sudbury Heritage Museums
The Greater Sudbury Museums are a network of four small community history museums in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Three of the four are located on heritage properties in different neighbourhoods within the city, and the fourth is located in ...
{{Authority control
Neighbourhoods in Greater Sudbury
Populated places established in 1973
Former towns in Ontario
Populated places disestablished in 2000