Chapleau 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, C ...

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%) ...

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. It is home to one of the world's largest wildlife preserves. Chapleau has a population of 1,942 according to the 2016 Canadian census. The major industries within the town are the logging mill, Rayonier Advanced Materials (RYAM) (formerly,

Tembec Tembec Industries Inc., known as Tembec, was a paper company in Canada, founded by Frank Dottori. In 2011, Tembec had approximately 3000 employees,Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) rail yards.

History

The first European settlement in the area was established in 1777 by the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

. The settlement was a

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most ...

post about to Chapleau's north, on Big Missinabi Lake. In 1885 the Canadian Pacific Railway was built through the area. The CPR chose this as a

divisional point In Canada, 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 location of facilities and in ...

, and the town was founded. It was named in honour of Sir

Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau Sir Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau (November 9, 1840 – June 13, 1898), born in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, was a French-Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 7th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec from 1892 to 1898. Life As a lawyer, he defen ...

, a lawyer, journalist, businessman, politician, and most notably the 5th

Premier of Quebec The premier of Quebec ( French: ''premier ministre du Québec'' (masculine) or ''première ministre du Québec'' (feminine)) is the head of government of the Canadian province of Quebec. The current premier of Quebec is François Legault of th ...

Louis Hémon Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913), was a French writer best known for his novel ''Maria Chapdelaine''. Biography He was born in Brest, France. In Paris, where he resided with his family, he was enrolled in the Montaigne and Loui ...

, author of the French novel ''

Maria Chapdelaine ''Maria Chapdelaine'' is a romance novel written in 1913 by the Breton writer Louis Hémon, who was then residing in Quebec.Guy Laflèche. Polémiques'. Editions du Singulier; 1992. . p. 126 – 128. Aimed at young French and Quebecois people ...

'', was struck and killed by a train in Chapleau on 8 July 1913. After a fire in 1948, the government was prompted to construct a road to Chapleau to enable logging contractors to truck timber before it rotted. The Chapleau Road (now Highway 129) was completed on January 28, 1949. In the early 1960s, Highway 101 was completed to link Chapleau with

Timmins Timmins ( ) is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada, located on the Mattagami River. The city is the fourth-largest city in the Northeastern Ontario region with a population of 41,145 (2021). The city's economy is based on natural resource ext ...

to the east, and Wawa to the west. Chapleau also developed logging and lumber mill operations, up until 1994 the town supported no less than three lumber mills, but the United States' imposition of a softwood lumber tariff designed to benefit American lumber companies has led to many layoffs and difficult times for the town. At its largest, with large CPR and lumber operations, the town had a population of over 5,000. However, the town has been gradually shrinking since 1950. In 1967, the Chapleau Centennial Museum was opened to showcase and celebrate local history. It is located at 94 Monk Street.

Geography and location

Chapleau is located in central

Northeastern Ontario Northeastern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario, which lies north of Lake Huron and east of Lake Superior. Northeastern Ontario consists of the districts of Algoma, Sudbury, Cochrane, Timiskami ...

, in the heart of the Canadian Shield. Chapleau is geographically isolated; the nearest cities are Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, and Sudbury, but all are more than a two-hour drive away. Highway 129 links the town with Highway 101, running east to Timmins and west to Wawa. Highway 129 also runs south, connecting with 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 ...

, Highway 17 at

Thessalon Thessalon is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located at the junction of Highway 17 and Highway 129 on the north shore of Lake Huron. It is surrounded by, but not part of, the municipality of Huron Shores, and is part of Algoma Di ...

, from Chapleau.

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

's Sudbury–White River train also connects Chapleau station with White River, Sudbury and a number of remote communities. Three

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

reserves are located near the township:

Chapleau Cree First Nation Chapleau Cree First Nation ( cr, ᔕᑊᓗ ᐃᓂᓂᐗᐠ, ''šaplo ininiwak'') is a Mushkegowuk Cree First Nation located by Chapleau Township, Sudbury District, Ontario, Canada. The First Nation have reserved for themselves the Chapleau 75 I ...

Brunswick House First Nation Brunswick House First Nation is an Ojibway-Cree First Nations in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in the Sudbury District, northeast of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. The First Nation have reserved for themselves the Mountbatten 76A Indian Re ...

, and Chapleau Ojibway First Nation. One unusual feature of the community's transportation network is that because a

railway yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

separates the community into distinct halves, the main street in the western portion of the community loops back over itself in a manner resembling a cloverleaf interchange, and then crosses over both itself and the railway yard on a grade separation before returning to street level to link to the eastern street grid.

Chapleau Crown Game Preserve

Chapleau Crown Game Preserve The Chapleau Crown Game Preserve is a fur bearing animal preserve area in Ontario, Canada, north-east of Lake Superior. It covers some in the Algoma and Sudbury Districts, and is officially classified as a Crown Game Preserve by the Government ...

to the north of the town is, at over , the largest animal preserve in the world. Protected wildlife include

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

s, pygmy shrews, bald eagles and loons. The preserve is a source of tourism, drawing nature-enthusiasts and fishermen to the township. All forms of hunting and trapping have been forbidden in the preserve since the 1920s. The result is an area with abundant wildlife. In fact, over 2,500 moose and over 2,000 black bears reside within the game preserve. Logging does occur within the preserve, as does fishing. There are two provincial parks and cottages located within the preserve.

Climate

Chapleau experiences a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(''Dfb'') with warm, rainy summers and long, cold, and snowy winters.

Politics

Chapleau was incorporated as the Corporation of the Township of Chapleau on February 1, 1901. Since that time it has been governed locally by a five-member council. The current council is made up of Mayor Michael Levesque and Councillors Rick Smith, Gerard Bernier, Nicolle Schuurman and Lisi Bernier.

Demographics

In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada, Chapleau had a population of 1,942 living in 867 of its 973 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 1,964. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Education

The town has two high schools, Chapleau Elementary and Secondary School (CESS) and École Secondaire Catholique Trillium, and two elementary schools, École élémentaire catholique Sacré-Cœur, and Our Lady of Fatima. Chapleau Elementary and Secondary school belongs to the

Algoma District School Board Algoma District School Board (known as English-language Public District School Board No. 2 prior to 1999) is a Public school (government funded), public school board in the Canadian province of Ontario. The school board is the school district Acad ...

, the others belong to the French and English Catholic school boards.

Economy

Main employers in Chapleau include the Canadian Pacific Railway and Ryam Lumber. Tourism is also an important part of the economy with several outfitters and lodges operating in the area. In 2012, the Chapleau Economic Development Corporation (CEDC) was founded as an independent, non-profit organization. Resolution 28-371, passed by the Chapleau Town Council on September 24, 2012, established the existing agreement between the Township and the CEDC.

Goldcorp Goldcorp Inc. was a gold production company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company employed about 15,800 people worldwide, engaged in gold mining and related activities including exploration, extraction, processing and ...

is working towards the advanced exploration phase at the Borden Gold project. Borden Lake Mine opened September 23rd 2019, creating many jobs for the local populace.

Wireless mesh Internet

Starting on November 9, 2005, Chapleau residents began testing a wireless

mesh A mesh is a barrier made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible or ductile materials. A mesh is similar to a web or a net in that it has many attached or woven strands. Types * A plastic mesh may be extruded, oriented, exp ...

Internet technology in a program called

Project Chapleau Project Chapleau was a Wi-Fi internet connection that covered the entire town of Chapleau, Ontario, Canada. It was the first of its kind in Canada. It was a wireless mesh Internet technology designed and implemented through a partnership between Be ...

. This

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

connection covered the entire town and was the first of its kind in Canada. This service was designed and implemented by

Bell Canada Enterprises BCE Inc., formerly Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., is a publicly traded Canadian holding company for Bell Canada, which includes telecommunications providers and various mass media assets under its subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Founded through a corp ...

Nortel Networks Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in Montreal, Queb ...

, and the Township of Chapleau. An analysis of the impact of high-speed internet on the residents and town of Chapleau was published in 2010 by Jessica Collins and Barry Wellman. In April, 2007, Project Chapleau concluded without a reason being given. The Project Chapleau office (The Chapleau Innovation Centre) was converted into a public internet access point, with job search and community networking facilities.

Media

All of the township's regular broadcast media are rebroadcasters of signals from Sudbury,

or Wawa. The township's only purely local media service is CFJW-FM 93.7, a special station which airs information from the municipal government in the event of a weather or industrial emergency. The station does not broadcast on a regular basis; in the event of an emergency, the municipal fire service activates its fire sirens to alert residents to tune in the station.

Radio

* FM 89.9 – CBCU-FM,

CBC Radio One CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent of C ...

* FM 91.9 – CBON-FM-28,

Ici Radio-Canada Première Ici Radio-Canada Première (formerly Première Chaîne) is a Canadian French-language radio network, the news and information service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (known as Société Radio-Canada in French), the public broadcaster of ...

* FM 93.7 – CFJW-FM, emergency alert * FM 95.9 – CHAP-FM, community-owned rebroadcaster of CHYC-FM SudburyCRTC Decision 2007–70
/ref> * FM 100.7 – CJWA-FM-1,

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

Television

*Channel 9: CITO-TV-4 – CTV

Notable people

* Floyd Curry (1925–2006), NHL player and four-time Stanley Cup winner * Robert Deluce, airline executive and current president and CEO of Porter Airlines * Robert Fife, journalist and author * Liz Howard, poet and winner of the

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...

* Adélard Lafrance (1912–1995), professional ice hockey player * Rick Norlock, federal Member of Parliament * Graham Ragsdale, decorated Canadian Army sniper * Jason Ward, 1997 first-round draft pick of the

Montreal Canadiens The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Hudson's Bay Company trading posts Municipalities in Sudbury District Single-tier municipalities in Ontario Township municipalities in Ontario