Eganville is a community occupying a deep

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

valley carved at the Fifth Chute of the

Bonnechere River The Bonnechere River is a river in the Saint Lawrence River drainage basin in Nipissing District and Renfrew County in eastern and northeastern Ontario, Canada. Shows the river course highlighted on a topographic map. The river flows from Algonqu ...

Renfrew County Renfrew County is a county and census division in the Canadian province of Ontario. It straddles the west bank of the Ottawa River. There are 17 municipalities in the county. Its county seat is Pembroke, which is geographically within the county ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Eganville lies within the township of

Bonnechere Valley Bonnechere Valley is a township municipality in Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada. It had a population of 3,898 in the 2021 Canadian census. It was established on January 1, 2001, by amalgamation of the village of Eganville and the townships of Gra ...

. Eganville is also known as the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

Capital of Canada. There are many fossils to be found in this area from approximately 500 million years ago (in a time before dinosaurs) including coral, crinoids, trilobites, cephalopods, gastropods, pelecypods, stromatolites, and brachiopods. The Bonnechere Valley is also a gateway to some of north-eastern Ontario's best-known tourist destinations, including the nearby Bonnechere Caves. The caves are located under a hill of limestone, said by geologists to have been the bottom of a tropical sea 500 million years ago. The Bonnechere Museum, through a partnership with the Bonnechere Caves, offers fossil hunts four times in a summer season where people can practice finding fossils and even take one home if they find a good one. Eganville is also home to a Geo-Heritage Walking Trail located along the Bonnechere River which features a fossil pit, a visit to an old quarry, a trench, wild plants, and scenic lookouts. Eganville is a stop to destinations into central Ontario.

Ontario Highway 41 King's Highway 41, commonly referred to as Highway 41, is a Ontario Provincial Highway Network, provincially maintained highway in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. The highway travels in a predominantly north� ...

, which runs north–south from Pembroke to Napanee, intersects with

Ontario Highway 60 King's Highway 60, commonly referred to as Highway 60, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The highway serves as the primary corridor through Algonquin Provincial Park, where it is dedicated as the Frank McD ...

in Eganville. The town of Eganville is the fifth of five chutes along the

, the others being

Castleford Castleford is a town within the City of Wakefield district, West Yorkshire, England. It had a population of 45,106 at a 2021 population estimate. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to the north of the t ...

Renfrew Renfrew (; ; ) is a town west of Glasgow in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It is the historic county town of Renfrewshire. Called the "Cradle of the Royal Stewarts" for its early link with Scotland's former royal house, Renfrew gaine ...

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals * Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking * Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil ...

and Fourth Chute. The chutes were used for moving timber past rapids and waterfalls.

History

The first settler in Eganville was Gregoire Belanger in 1825. He built the first lumber shanty on the Bonnechere River. He then sold the area to James Wadsworth in 1826 who called it "New Fairfield Farm". Wadsworth then sold the area to Eganville's name-sake John Egan who was both a lumberman and a politician. The power of the river has been harnessed since 1848 but it was John Egan's grist mill that is credited with stimulating the town's growth. After his death in 1857 (at the age of 46) his family ran the business for ten years before selling to James Bonfield and Robert Turner. Eganville's post office dates from 1852. In 1911, a major fire destroyed many of the buildings in Eganville. Some 75 homes were lost along with schools, churches and industries along both sides on the Bonnechere River. A year later, the village post office was erected and used for almost a century. It was then used as the Municipal building. This building has since become the home of the Bonnechere Museum and is one of the best-known symbols of Eganville. Eganville was incorporated as a Village in the 1890s and remained an independent municipality until it was amalgamated with the Townships of Grattan, Sebastopol, and South Algona to form the Township of

in 2001.

Demographics

Notable people

Ice hockey players Dale McTavish and Shawn Heins and Olympian Melissa Bishop were born in Eganville.

References

External links

The Township of Bonnechere Valley official website
{{authority control Communities in Renfrew County Former villages in Ontario