A booming town

About 250km north of Toronto on Ontario’s Georgian Bay, Depot Harbour was once the end point of the main rail line connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. The first train ran on 7 January 1897, and by the 1920s trains were arriving every 20 minutes to pick up timber, wheat, coal and iron ore from ships arriving from Chicago and Milwaukee, and transport them east to Ottawa, Montreal and Portland, Maine.

In the early 20th Century, Depot Harbour was booming, with more than 100 houses, churches, schools, stores, hotels, freight sheds, grain elevators and docks. The population grew with each passing year, forming a melting pot of cultures, including Irish, Italian and Polish. In its heyday, Depot Harbour was home to more than 1,500 permanent residents.

But the settlement’s existence came at a steep cost.