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History General

Discover Ontario

Stories of the Province's Unique People and Places

by (author) Terry Boyle

Publisher
Dundurn Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2016
Category
General, Ontario, Unexplained Phenomena
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781459732223
    Publish Date
    Apr 2016
    List Price
    $8.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781459732209
    Publish Date
    Apr 2016
    List Price
    $22.99

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Description

An exploration of the unique and unusual places in Ontario that are steeped in history and folklore.

Using updated and archival material from Discover Ontario, a popular radio show that ran from 1987 until 2004, author Terry Boyle invites you to explore the hidden, unusual, and unknown sites and stories from around Ontario.

Revisit an era of mobsters and rum-runners during the years of prohibition. Traverse the deadly waves of the Hudson Bay and visit the watery graves of shipwrecks scattered among the province’s waterways and coastlines. Learn about Project Magnet, the Canadian government’s top-secret mission to observe and study UFOs. Discover the Ontario connection to the mysterious Crystal Skull of Indiana Jones fame. Or take a day trip to explore the beauty of the natural world and the rich history of many of Ontario’s communities.

Told in a series of short vignettes drawing on a combination of local history and Canadian folklore, Discover Ontario reveals all this and more — a side of the province not often shared in guidebooks.

About the author

Terry Boyle is a Canadian author, lecturer, and teacher who has shared his passion for history and folklore in many books since 1976, including four titles on Haunted Ontario. He hosts the popular Entwood Tours, historic and haunted guided walks in Parry Sound and Bala, Ontario, during the summer season. He has hosted television's Creepy Canada and radio's Discover Ontario on Classical 103.1 FM. Boyle currently lives near Burk's Falls, Ontario.

Terry Boyle's profile page

Excerpt: Discover Ontario: Stories of the Province's Unique People and Places (by (author) Terry Boyle)

Fishing

At some time in the first quarter of the nineteenth century someone developed commercial fishing on Georgian Bay. The introduction of fishing to the Thirty Thousand Islands region was achieved through the natural extension of operations further down the Great Lakes.
Georgian Bay fishery grew in time to be the greatest source of lake trout and whitefish on all the Canadian lakes. The east side of the bay, with its deep water and sandy shoals, suited these fish well. In the 1850s, Georgian Bay harvest was upwards of a thousand barrels annually. When the railroad reached the south end of Georgian Bay, circa 1860, a more direct route to market was opened, and Collingwood, Meaford, and Owen Sound became the major fishing ports of Georgian Bay.
The expansion of the fishing market prompted more vessels to sail out each spring to the various fishing grounds in the bay. The men who fished some distance from home built a fishing station on the outer fringes of the Thirty Thousand Islands. The largest station was at the Bustard Islands. There were others at the Minks, the Snakes, and Champlain Island. These were sizeable summer colonies, made up of a number of fishermen and their families.
Improved transportation made it possible to market fish in very fresh condition. United States buyers sent schooners on regular rounds to collect the fish at the stations, packing them in ice in great wheeled boxes with a capacity of half a ton, that could be rolled on and off the schooners. One of the best available descriptions we have of the fishing industry in the nineteenth century is contained in the book entitled The Georgian Bay, written by C.L. Hamilton in 1893. After a sailing excursion on the bay he stated, “There were then over 400 men engaged in fishing in Georgian Bay, and equipment included 150 boats, 15 tugs and one and a half million yards of nets. An outfit for two men, a boat and sails, and three gangs of nets was valued at around $1100. In a season, these men would take perhaps twenty tons of fish, for which the buyer’s agent would pay seventy dollars to eighty dollars a ton. ” Mr. Hamilton also recorded that there was a small trade in fish oil at the time.
In the 1930s the sea lamprey entered Lake Huron and destroyed the lake trout population there. At first the Georgian Bay fish seemed to resist the invader from the Atlantic, but by 1960 there were no trout left in the fishing grounds. Other fish were attacked by the lamprey, the most important of them the whitefish. In 1959, the total catch amounted to only 14,515 kilograms of fish.
Large-scale commercial fishing in Georgian Bay came to a close. Today there are still a few commercial fishermen working their nets. However, when a licensed fishermen retires the government buys back his or her licence and usually does not reissue it. Therefore, the commercial fishermen are becoming a dying breed, just like the fish themselves. More questions need to be asked of our politicians regarding the restocking and current levels of fish in the Great Lakes. Restaurants operating in our tourist destinations in Georgian Bay never know if the commercial fishermen will be able to fill their orders or what will happen when the last commercial fisherman disappears. Their businesses may very well vanish like the fishermen and the fish before them.