Brent is a community on Cedar Lake on the

Petawawa River The Petawawa River is a river in the Saint Lawrence River drainage basin in Nipissing District and Renfrew County in eastern and northeastern Ontario, Canada. The river flows from Algonquin Provincial Park to the Ottawa River at the town of Peta ...

in northern

Algonquin Provincial Park Algonquin Provincial Park is an Ontario Ontario Parks, provincial park located between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River, mostly within the Nipissing, Unorganized, South Part, Ontario, Unorganized South Part of Nipissing District. Established i ...

and is located in

geographic Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

Deacon Township in the unorganized south part of

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 2021, the population was 84,716. The land area is ; the population density was , making it o ...

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, Timisk ...

, Canada. It was originally a station and

divisional point In Canada and also in the United States, 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 ...

on the

transcontinental Transcontinental may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * "Transcontinental", a song by the band Pedro the Lion from the album ''Achilles Heel'' * TC Transcontinental, a publishing, media and marketing company based in Canada, a subsidiary ...

main line of the

Canadian Northern Railway The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canada, 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 Edmonto ...

, and was named for

Brentwood, England Brentwood is a town in Essex, England, in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt 20 miles (30 km) north-east of Charing Cross and close to the M25 motorway. The population of the built-up area was 55,340 in 2021. Brentwood is a t ...

, the home of Robert M. Horne-Payne, a director of the Canadian Northern. During the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of lumber companies operated at Brent. It later became a

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

divisional point between the

CN 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 ...

to the west and the

CN Beachburg Subdivision The Canadian National Railway's Beachburg Subdivision, or "Beachburg Sub" for short, was part of the former Transcontinental Mainline. The Beachburg Sub connected Ottawa to Brent, Ontario. The line began operating in 1915 as part of Canadian Nort ...

to the east; the next railway points were Government Park to the west and

Acanthus Acanthus (: acanthus, rarely acanthuses in English, or acanthi in Latin), its feminine form acantha (plural: acanthae), the Latinised form of the ancient Greek word acanthos or akanthos, or the prefix acantho-, may refer to: Biology *Acanthus ...

to the east. In 1995, Canadian National Railways decided to close the Northern Algonquin line to rail traffic, stating that operational costs were too high. As part of the closure the Brent rail yard was dismantled along with the yards' twin 125 KW generators that supplied power to Brent. Brent is too remote to be connected to the power grid so the remaining dwellings requiring power use either generator or solar or have no power at all. The Brent village at its peak, c. 1930, had a schoolhouse, hotel, restaurant, post office, train station, round house, coal tower, water tower, sawmill, and houses to accommodate around 200 people both railway and sawmill employees. Brent today is essentially a recreational camp site with some park services and is an access point to the interior of Algonquin Park. Brent operates seasonally with no permanent population. The village of Brent consists of 17 seasonal dwellings 14 of which are located in the east end (the rail yard) and the 3 in the west end (logging mill). Well-preserved ranger and deputy-ranger stations are located on the peninsula found at the easternmost edge of the village. There is also a graveyard located beside the present-day westernmost campsite number 2. There is no telephone or cellular phone access, as it is too far to connect to the

telephone system A telephone network is a telecommunications network that connects telephones, which allows telephone calls between two or more parties, as well as newer features such as fax and internet. The idea was revolutionized in the 1920s, as more and more ...

and is out of range of any cellular network. The Brent crater is located north of the village.

References

Other map sources: * * *

Gallery

Image:Brent station 01.jpg, Brent station west side as seen from a train in the 1970s Image:Brent Store.jpg, Brent Store in the 1970s. Note: Petrol pumps are no longer present. Image:Brent building.jpg, Brent One Room Schoolhouse, Brent, Ontario Image:Brent house.jpg, unidentified building, Brent, Ontario Image:Brent house 02.jpg, unidentified building, Brent, Ontario Image:Brent railway 01.jpg, Railway yard and Brent Station, looking west in the 1970s Image:Brent railway 02.jpg, Railway yard and Brent Station, looking west in the 1970s Image:Brent railway 03.jpg, Brent railway yard as seen from a passing train in springtime early 1970s {{authority control Communities in Nipissing District