temagami bucks depopulaton trend

the latest census figures from statistics canada show temagami posting its first population gain in a generation. in 2006, 934 people called temagami home, compared to 893 in 2001, a rise of 4.6%. that's not far from the national rate of 5.4% or the provincial rate of 6.6%. the 2001 census, by comparison, showed a drop of over 13% in the previous 5 years.

latchford recorded impressive gains, posting a 21.2% increase, up to 446 from 368. however, the rest of the temiskaming district is still a story of depopulation, losing 3.1% overall.

why was temagami able to buck the depopulation trend? this census was conducted in early may, 2006, 6 months after temagami forest products laid off 40 workers and shut its doors for good. some of temagami's rise no doubt reflects these mill workers, some of whom have since moved away. however, many of these former workers still live in temagami. many others never moved to temagami in the first place. so one cannot point to the mill as having temporarily boosted temagami's population. rather, retirees, some of them former cottagers and some completely new to the area, have driven this growth. many have moved into new houses in the cassels lake subdivision, while others have moved permanently into cottages on lake temagami, along the highway corridor, or in town. i predict that the net lake subdivision (temagami bays estates) will give a similar boost to temagami's population over the next 5 years. all of this retirement growth has been without the active encouragement of the municipality.

people move to temagami for the clean air, the open spaces, the fishing, the hiking. they do not move here for hardscrabble industrial jobs. if we can post these kinds of numbers while all the effort is going toward boosting industry, imagine what the municipality of temagami could do if it actually promoted retirement living here?

statistics canada community index

square island bear dance

from frank g. speck, myths and folk-lore of the timiskaming algonquin and timagami ojibwa, canada geological survey, memoir 71, ottawa, 1915.

the duck dance (ci'ci'pci'mo'o) is another performance of which the timagami are quite fond. it seems to have been influenced by european dances. the orchestra consists, generally, of a violin upon which some old reel or hornpipe or french jig is played. formerly, they used the drum. the dance begins with two files of partners, the men on one side and the women on the other, side by side. all facing the musician, they begin walking backward and forward together. after doing this three or four times, the men swerve to their right and the women to their left, circle around and meet again at the head of the line. then the partners hold hands, forming a bridge, and the couple behind passes under the bridge, takes position in front of the next couple, also holding hands, while the next couple then has to pass under two hand bridges and fall in place before the preceding ones. the whole company resumes its original position in this way by passing under the bridge and forming a new link in its lower end. this circling and bridging is done several times. the next figure changes altogether. from the parallel line formation side by side the first couple faces right about and starts to thread in, first to the right and then left of each of the other couples as they in turn come to the head of the line and follow the first couple toward the rear. the whole movement simply becomes a swerving chain figure in which each couple alternately passes to the right and to the left of the one coming toward it. sometimes a modern waltz turn or two is introduced between these movements. on the whole, this is said to come from the native duck dance in which the object was to represent the movements of a flock of drakes and ducks. at the end of the dance the performers all quack two or three times. this is purely a pleasure dance.

n'daki menan's atanarjuat

once a hunter was so quick of foot that when he shot his arrow at a beaver plunging into the lake from the shore, he would run down, catch the beaver by the tail before the arrow got to it, and hold it until the arrow struck. he was a fast runner indeed.

- related by aleck paul, second chief of timagami band, to frank speck, myths and folk-lore of the timiskaming algonquin and timagami ojibwa, gsc memoir 71, no. 9, anthropological series, 1915.

early 20th century maps

the geological survey of canada published these maps of temagami between 1904 and 1910. if you look closely, you will see portages, pre-dam lake levels, fur trading posts, indian cabins and more. they are .pdf files and too large to post here.

geological map of the northeast arm and vermilion iron ranges, lake temagami, district of nipissing, ontario. barlow, a e; leroy, o e, 1904. geological survey of canada, multicoloured geological map, 852.

geological map of the area between timagami and rabbit lakes, district of nipissing, ontario. young, g a; barlow, a e, 1907. geological survey of canada, multicoloured geological map, 944.

lake timiskaming mining region, ontario and quebec. richard, l n, 1910. geological survey of canada, "a" series map, 18a.

lake timiskaming sheet, no 138, nipissing district, ontario and pontiac county, quebec. barlow, a e, 1908. geological survey of canada, multicoloured geological map, 59.

lake nipissing sheet, nipissing district, ontario, pontiac county, quebec. barlow, a e, 1908. geological survey of canada, multicoloured geological map, 606.

frank panabaker, temagami's painter

a contemporary of the group of seven, frank panabaker (1904-1992) painted several times in temagami. unfortunately, i've been unable to find any images on the web of these paintings. one painting i'd particularly like to see is the red pines of lake temagami at manor hill fine art. following are some panabaker scenes from georgian bay.

can anyone place this quote?

i heard this many a year ago, but have been unable to find a source. if you know who originally said this, would you please leave a comment?

when I say the word temagami I feel like I’ve sung a song.

your dose of horses#!t for the week

you might like to see this redneck, bambi-killer attack on earthroots. you know you're making a difference and having an impact when someone cyber-squats on your domain and attacks you. keep up the good work, earthroots!

while you're at it, here's the real earthroots webpage.

are diamonds this girl's best friend?

on the subject of the economic future of temagami, our options are limited. i do believe that the forestry option is off the table for at least a generation. all of temagami's mills from the 1950's onward have closed, never to reopen, including the temagami forest products birch mill. that mill was a monumental waste of 10 years, where nearly all of the municipal council's economic development efforts went into that. as for tourism, i honestly don't see a major increase in the numbers anytime soon. true, visitor days will continue to increase slowly, with blips from things like flu outbreaks, u.s. government policy or road blockades. i do see hook and bullet tourism decreasing slowly while ecotourism increases slowly to offset those losses. what else is there? cottage and new home development will probably increase in importance to become a medium-size player. government and retail services won't create economic development on their own, they will simply respond to the growth in other areas.

so i see us in a generation of enhanced status quo, with one big wild card.

diamonds.

if any one development has the potential to knock us out of our rut of enhanced status quo, it is diamonds. temagami lies along the same geological formation on which de beers is developing the victor diamond mine west of attawapiskat.

at least two companies, tres-or and temex, are conducting advanced exploration in temagami. tres-or is working two properties, one near bay lake and the other near rib lake, while temex is working near wilson lake.

adroit resources provides a good overview of the diamond potential in temagami here.

would a diamond mine be a good thing for temagami? as an open pit, it would be a blight on the landscape, every bit as bad as the sherman mine. it would increase access pressure for motorized recreation elsewhere in the region. it wouldn't do anything to speed or slow timber extraction. it would raise property values and bring families into the nipissing-temagami-temiskaming shores area. housing development would increase, particularly on the lakes lining highway 11. municipal tax revenues would soar.

for another 25 years, temagami would be a rich little town, until the diamonds have all been dug up. i have no illusions however that the town would be able to use this windfall to secure its long term future.

why temagami should be a national park: reason #2

95% of temagami is public land. without having to purchase or expropriate land from private holders, creating a new park is a comparative breeze. park planners in other jurisdictions would kill for such a golden opportunity.

why temagami should be a national park: reason #1

but will they re-open temagami's mnr office?

osprey news is reporting that ontario pc leader john tory is advocating a decentralization of government ministries from big cities to rural and northern areas. "tory promised to decentralize the provincial government bureaucracy by setting a target for meaningful decentralization, say ten per cent, and move government offices from toronto into the regions. 'we can give a real shot in the arm by adding these jobs to smaller regional economies,' he said."

don't forget that this is the same ontario pc party that centralized government ministries from rural and northern areas to the big cities in the mid-1990s under mike "the axe" harris. the contempt of the pc party toward ontario's people is simply astounding. do they think we forgot that they closed temagami's mnr office in 1995, throwing over 50 jobs out of town and moving them to north bay?

north bay nugget

story of a hunter

there were two men living in a camp with two women and the rest of the band. on a cold day in winter one of the men said he was going to track a moose, and left on his snowshoes. he said he would be back by night. he was gone all day and by night he had not returned, so his wife began to think that possibly he had shot a moose, but, as he had taken his axe with him, he might have cut himself in some way. they waited until morning and then, taking up his trail, they tracked him to where he had shot a moose and farther on to where he had skinned it. the meat was there but the skin was gone. looking around they saw a fire not far off. when they reached the fire they discovered that the hunter had rolled himself up in the green hide to sleep, and during the night it had frozen around him and he had been unable to get out. they thawed out the skin and all went back to camp.

from frank g. speck, myths and folk-lore of the timiskaming algonquin and timagami ojibwa, canada geological survey, memoir 71, ottawa, 1915.

painting by robert bateman, winter sunset - moose.