Red Lake is a municipality with town status in the
Canadian province
Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...
of
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 ...
, located northwest of
Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario. Its population i ...
and less than from the
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...
border. The municipality consists of six small communities (Balmertown, Cochenour,
Madsen, McKenzie Island, Red Lake, and Starratt-Olsen)
and had a population of 4,094 people in the
2021 Canadian census
The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canada, Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, whic ...
.
Red Lake is an enclave within
Unorganized Kenora District
Unorganized Kenora District is an unorganized area in northwestern Ontario, Canada, in Kenora District. Constituting 98.39 percent of the district's land area, yet only 10.93 percent of its population, it is essentially the remainder of the distr ...
. The municipality was formed on 1 July 1998, when the former incorporated townships of Golden and Red Lake were merged along with a small portion of Unorganized Kenora District.
The name of the town comes from a local legend telling of two men from the
Chippewa tribe who stumbled across a large moose. The men proceeded to kill the moose, the blood of which drained into a nearby lake. The blood turned the lake's waters red in colour, ultimately giving the area its name.
The name appears on the Bouchette map of 1875, and was officially approved on 7 December 1909.
History
According to archeological surveys in the area, it is proposed that
First Nations
First nations are indigenous settlers or bands.
First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to:
Indigenous groups
*List of Indigenous peoples
*First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...
people have inhabited the Red Lake area for 2,000 years. The first people to live on the land were members of the
Sioux
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...
and
Cree
The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...
tribes.
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...
people began to inhabit the area approximately 200–300 years ago, effectively becoming the predominant people at the time.
In 1790, the
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...
established a trading post at Red Lake as an outpost of
Osnaburgh House
Mishkeegogamang First Nation is an Ojibway band government ( First Nation) in the Canadian province of Ontario. Until 1993, the band was called the Osnaburgh First Nation, with various settlements at times being called New Osnaburgh, Osnaburgh Ho ...
. The post, also known as Lake Rouge, Red Paint Lake, or Asa-tena-a-sat, operated periodically until 1806. In 1815, it was reopened and became the seat of HBC's Red Lake District, but in 1822, it closed again.
In 1897, the R.J. Gilbert expedition discovered gold and staked eight claims. These claims were surveyed by James Tyrrell, brother of
Joseph Tyrrell
Joseph Burr Tyrrell, FRSC (November 1, 1858 – August 26, 1957) was a Canadian geologist, cartographer, mining consultant and historian. He discovered dinosaur (''Albertosaurus sarcophagus'') bones in Alberta's Badlands and coal around Drumh ...
, as well as a rock sample from an shaft
assayed 0.6 ounces gold per ton. However, the remoteness of the site precluded further exploration until 1922. A report by
Department of Mines geologist and former head of geology at
Queen's University Dr. Everend Lester Bruce indicated gold-bearing
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
was to be found in the
greenstone around the lake. Fred Carroll then staked what would become the Cochenour-Willans Mine, and Herbert Tyrell staked what would become McMarmac Mine to the north of the Cochenour Willans mine. In 1925, Lorne and Ray Howey, along with brother-in-law George McNeely, plus W.F. Morgan staked claims which became the Howey and Hasaga Mines. Marius Madsen staked claims which became the
Madsen Mine
The Madsen Mine is a Canadian underground gold mine, currently owned by West Red Lake Gold Mines. In May 2025, the mine re-opened and began production. The mine was also previously operational from: 1938 to 1976; 1997 to 1999; and 2021 to 2022. ...
. The McDonough brothers staked the future Red Lake Gold Shore Mines.
The town experienced a sudden surge of economic, industrial and population growth with the development of the gold mines. By 1936, Red Lake's Howey Bay airport was the busiest in the world, with more flights landing and taking off per hour than any other.
By 1941, the Howey Mine had produced 421,592 ounces of gold. Hasaga Gold Mines produced 218,213 ounces over 14 years. McKenzie Red Lake Gold Mines produced 651,156 ounces by 1966, the
Madsen Mine
The Madsen Mine is a Canadian underground gold mine, currently owned by West Red Lake Gold Mines. In May 2025, the mine re-opened and began production. The mine was also previously operational from: 1938 to 1976; 1997 to 1999; and 2021 to 2022. ...
produced 2,416,609 ounces by 1976, and the Cochenour-Willans Mine produced 1,244,279 ounces by 1971. Jack Hammell developed Uchi Lake which produced 114,467 ounces by 1943. H. Dewitt Smith developed the Berens River, which produced 157,341 ounces by 1948. George Campbell started the second Red Lake gold rush in 1949 with the development of Campbell Red Lake Mines. It produced a peak of 300,472 ounces in 1993, the same year cumulative production reached 8,000,000 ounces. The Dickenson Red Lake Gold Mine had produced 3,000,000 ounces of gold by 1993.
[
In 1960, the Township of Red Lake was incorporated, and in 1985, the nearby Township of Golden was established.]
In 1995 Goldcorp
Goldcorp Inc. was a gold production company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company stood among the largest gold producers in the world, employed about 15,800 people worldwide, engaged in gold mining and related activit ...
, the then owners of the Red Lake Mine
The Red Lake mine is a Canadian gold mine located in northwestern Ontario at Red Lake. It was one of the largest gold mines in Canada and in the world. The mine had estimated reserves of 3.23 million oz of gold in 2013. Note that the Campbell an ...
, discovered that it contains the world's richest grade gold ore (two troy ounce
Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 p ...
s of gold per metric ton
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...
). Shortly thereafter, the mine suffered through a four-year-long miners' strike
The following is a list of miners' strikes. Miners' strikes are when miners conduct strike actions.
See also
*List of strikes
*History of coal mining in the United States
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miners' strikes
Miners' labor disputes, ...
. In 2004, the site was declared the richest gold mine in the world.
On July 1, 1998, the Townships of Red Lake and Golden, along with the unorganized territory governed by the Madsen local services board, were amalgamated and became the Municipality of Red Lake.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population
The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...
conducted by Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Red Lake had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.[
]
Climate
The climate of the area is warm-summer humid continental
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 cold (s ...
(Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
''Dfb''). Snow usually starts falling around late October or early November, and starts melting around March but is not normally fully melted until late April, whilst late-season snow in May is not rare. This long winter is ideal for the local snowmobilers and for ice fishing, although the wind is often very cold and temperatures may drop to below . During winter, residents and visitors participate in snowmobiling, ice fishing, skiing, ice hockey, and downhill sliding.
During the summer, the area experiences a moderate climate with little humidity, which is ideal for fishing, camping, boating, canoeing, and hiking.
Economy
The three primary sources of employment in Red Lake are support services for the numerous mines surrounding the town, small scale logging and a tourism sector specializing in hunting and fishing. It is known as the "Norseman Capital of the World", referring to the Noorduyn Norseman
The Noorduyn Norseman, also known as the C-64 Norseman, is a Canadian single-engine bush plane designed to operate from unimproved surfaces. Distinctive stubby landing gear protrusions from the lower fuselage make it easily recognizable.
Intro ...
aircraft which played a significant role in the development of the area.[Richthammer, John. ''The End of the Road: A History of the Red Lake District'' (1985)]
Transportation
Red Lake is located at the northern terminus of Highway 105, and is the northernmost town in Ontario that is located on a primary King's Highway. A short spur route, Highway 125, extends northerly from Highway 105 to the communities of Balmertown, Cochenour and McKenzie Island, while Highway 618 extends westerly from Highway 105 to the communities of Madsen and Starratt-Olsen. Only one highway in the province, the secondary Highway 599, extends further north than the terminus of Highway 125.
The town acts as a cargo, passenger, and tourism hub for Northwestern Ontario
Northwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Its western boundary is the ...
. With Pickle Lake, Red Lake services over twenty northern fly-in communities. Today, Red Lake Airport
Red Lake Airport is located north of Red Lake, Ontario, Red Lake, Ontario, Canada.
Red Lake Airport is located south of the community of Cochenour, Ontario. The airport serves as a point of call for air carriers offering scheduled passenger s ...
is a "mini-hub" facilitating travel to and from all northern communities in Northwestern Ontario. Four airway companies take advantage of Red Lake's close proximity to the northern communities. North Star Air
North Star Air is a Canadian charter, passenger, and cargo airline with its headquarters in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It maintains a secondary passenger hub in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, and cargo hubs in Pickle Lake, Red Lake, Kapuskasing and Thomps ...
, Bearskin Airlines
Bearskin Lake Air Service LP, operating as Bearskin Airlines, is a regional airline based in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. It is a division of Perimeter Aviation and operates services in northern Ontario and Manitoba. Its main base is at Thund ...
, Superior Airways, and Wasaya Airways
Wasaya Airways LP (or in Oji-Cree language, Oji-Cree ᐙᐦᓭᔮ ᐱᒥᐦᓭᐎᐣ (''Waaseyaa Bimisewin''); unpointed: ᐗᓭᔭ ᐱᒥᓭᐎᐣ) is a First Nations in Canada, First Nations-owned domestic airline with its headquarters in Thu ...
all operate out of "YRL".
Attractions
Red Lake has the Red Lake Regional Heritage Centre, a museum of local art and history, and is close to Woodland Caribou Provincial Park
Woodland Caribou Provincial Park is a provincial park in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, west of the municipality of Red Lake. It borders Atikaki Provincial Park and Nopiming Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba, and is made up of Canadian Shield ...
and Pakwash Provincial Park. Some local restaurants are Antonio's, Spud&Dog, and The Howey. Red Lake is a prime location for summer sport fishing, as the lake contains several types of fish including walleye
The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', Synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the walleyed pike, yellow pike, yellow pikeperch or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern ...
, northern pike
The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (pikes). They are commonly found in brackish water, moderately salty and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). T ...
, lake trout
The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater Salvelinus, char living mainly in lakes in Northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, laker, and grey trout. In Lake Sup ...
, whitefish and sauger
The sauger (''Sander canadensis'') is a freshwater perciform fish of the family Percidae that resembles its close relative, the walleye. The species is a member of the largest vertebrate order, the Perciformes.Jaeger, Matthew. 2004. Montana's ...
. Other popular recreational summer activities include golfing at the Red Lake Golf and Country Club, swimming at Rahill and Kinsmen Beach, and even exploring the many bays and arms of Red Lake by boat.
Hunting is another activity in the region that attracts tourism, especially during the fall season. Red Lake is known for its abundance of game in the District, including moose
The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...
, ruffed grouse
The ruffed grouse (''Bonasa umbellus'') is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains across Canada to Alaska. It is the most widely distributed game bird in North America. It is non-migratory. It is the only spe ...
, spruce grouse, duck
Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family (biology), family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and goose, geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfam ...
, and bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...
. Some citizens even participate in the fur industry with established trapping lines interspersed throughout the local forests. The gray wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...
, white-tailed deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...
, red fox
The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe and Asia, plus ...
, beaver
Beavers (genus ''Castor'') are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. There are two existing species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-large ...
, and many bird species also inhabit the area.
Notable people
* Philip Beachy (born 1958 in Red Lake), biochemist
*Cliff Caines Cliff Caines is a Canadian documentary filmmaker originally from Red Lake, Ontario. He is most noted for his 2015 film '' A Rock and a Hard Place'', a film about mining life in Red Lake which received an honorable mention for the Colin Low Award a ...
, documentary filmmaker who profiled the community in his 2015 film '' A Rock and a Hard Place''
* Kristen Hager, television actress
*Karl Brooks Heisey
Karl Brooks Heisey (31 May 1895, Markham, Ontario – 7 December 1937, Toronto, Ontario) was a Canadian mining engineer and mining executive in the 1930s."Mining Executive Karl Heisey, Dies", ''Ottawa Citizen'', 8 December 1937 Heisey pioneered ...
, mining engineer
*Linda Lundström
Linda Lundström, Order of Ontario, O.Ont., (born 1951) is a Canadian fashion designer.
Life and career
Lundström was born in Red Lake, Ontario and raised in the nearby hamlet of Cochenour. When she was a child, her mother bought her a sewing m ...
, clothing designer
*Norval Morrisseau
Norval Morrisseau (March 14, 1932 – December 4, 2007), also known as Copper Thunderbird, was an Indigenous Canadian artist from the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation. He is widely regarded as the grandfather of contemporary Indigeno ...
, renowned Anishinabe
The Anishinaabe (alternatively spelled Anishinabe, Anicinape, Nishnaabe, Neshnabé, Anishinaabeg, Anishinabek, Aanishnaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They in ...
artist sometimes called the "Father of Woodland Art"
*Eric Radford
Eric Radford (born January 27, 1985) is a retired Canadian pair skater. With former partner Meagan Duhamel, he is a two-time world champion (2015, 2016), a 2018 Olympic gold medallist in the team event, a 2014 Olympic silver medallist in the t ...
, pairs figure skater with Meghan Duhamel, 2-time World champion (2015, 2016), 2-time Olympian (2014, 2018), Olympic Team Silver medallist (2014), Olympic Team Gold medallist (2018), and individual pairs Olympic Bronze medallist (2018)
*Eleonore Schönmaier
Eleonore Schönmaier is a Canadian poet and fiction writer.
Career
Eleonore Schönmaier is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections ''Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete'' (2021), ''Dust Blown Side of the Journey'' (2017) ...
, poet and author
Media
Print
* ''The Northern Sun News'' was a weekly broadsheet newspaper serving Red Lake and the surrounding Northern Communities. It had a circulation of 1600. On 28 August 2015, it announced via Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
that its last issue would be 2 September 2015.
Radio stations
* FM 90.5 - CBEA-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 o ...
* FM 97.1 – CKDR-FM-5, 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 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
radio
Defunct radio stations
* AM 1340 - CKRE was a former rebroadcaster of the now currently operating CKDR-FM
CKDR-FM is a radio station in Dryden, Ontario, Canada. The station broadcasts an adult contemporary format at 92.7 FM.
CKDR also has rebroadcasters in Ear Falls, Hudson, Ignace, Red Lake and Sioux Lookout.
History
CKDR was launched in 1963 ...
in Dryden. It originally applied for 99.5 FM in 1980.
* FM 95.1 - CFRI-FM was a radio station in Red Lake that received approval in 2000 from the CRTC to operate a new FM community radio station on the frequency of 95.1 MHz with an extension of time limit to get the station on the air in 2001. Decision CRTC 2001-649
/ref> Its uncertain if the station had ever launched or when it left the air. No known license renewals were issued for CFRI-FM Red Lake.
See also
*Cobalt silver rush
The Cobalt silver rush was a silver rush in Ontario, Canada that began in 1903 when huge veins of silver were discovered by workers on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) near the Mile 103 post. By 1905 a full-scale silver rush w ...
*Greenstone, Ontario
Greenstone is a single-tier municipality in the Canadian province of Ontario with a population of 4,636 according to the 2016 Canadian census. It stretches along Highway 11 from Lake Nipigon to Longlac and covers .
The town was formed in 2001, ...
*Hemlo, Ontario
Unorganized Thunder Bay District is an unorganized area in northwestern Ontario, Canada in Thunder Bay District. It comprises all parts of the district that are not part of an incorporated municipality or a First Nations reserve.
Most of the terr ...
*Kirkland Lake, Ontario
Kirkland Lake is a town and municipality in Timiskaming District, Ontario, Timiskaming District of Northeastern Ontario. The 2021 population, according to Statistics Canada, was 7,750.
The community name was based on a nearby lake which in turn ...
*Matachewan, Ontario
Matachewan is a township in Timiskaming, Northeastern Ontario, Canada, located at the end of Ontario Highway 66 along the Montreal River. The name is derived from the Cree word for "meeting of the currents".
The town's main economy is base ...
*Porcupine Gold Rush
The Porcupine Gold Rush was a gold rush that took place in Northern Ontario starting in 1909 and developing fully by 1911. A combination of the hard rock of the Canadian Shield and the rapid capitalization of mining meant that smaller companies a ...
References
External links
*
{{Kenora District
Hudson's Bay Company trading posts
Mining communities in Ontario
Municipalities in Kenora District
Single-tier municipalities in Ontario