Britt is a community in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) 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 ...

province 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 ...

, located in the unincorporated

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, ...

of Wallbridge in the Parry Sound District. The community is located on the north shore of the Magnetawan River 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 dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, w ...

industry in this area had reached its peak, prior to the building of the

CPR Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spont ...

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 elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

, 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, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

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 Unorganized Centre Parry Sound District is an unorganized area in central Ontario, Canada, between Georgian Bay and Lake Nipissing in the District of Parry Sound. It is made up of geographic townships which have no governing bodies and which a ...

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''.

References

Communities in Parry Sound District Designated places in Ontario Local services boards in Ontario Magnetawan River {{Ontario-geo-stub