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Credits: North Bay City Hall, History of North Bay, North Bay Police History, Ontario Hydro History. Some old postcards ----- paste this site in your browser http://northbayhistory.homestead.com/Water.html This is the end of North Bay History - Next will be Lady Lake, Florida and WaterOak our American Home for 6 months out of the year. If you are having trouble finding previous posts look to the right edge of the page. The posts are filed by the month.

The city has big plans for the waterfront. In the 1980’s a mile long waterfront park/promenade was developed along the Lake Nipissing shoreline adjacent to the downtown core. Eventually such attractions as a mini-train ride and (more recently) two antique carousels (largely crafted by local artisans) were installed and quickly became very popular with tourists and locals alike. Now, work is getting underway on a large new multifaceted community park that will be developed on the former Canadian Pacific Railway yards that separated the downtown core from the existing waterfront park. In August of 2009 a new pedestrian underpass opened connecting the downtown core to the waterfront for the first time since the CPR laid down tracks. Several more carousels, botanical gardens, a children's area and an extended mini-train ride will be among the park's attractions. The new community waterfront park is planned for completion by the year 2011 and is expected to transform the look and fe...

North Bay grew through a strong lumbering sector, mining and the three railways in the early days. North Bay was incorporated as a city in August 1925. The Dionne Quintuplets were born in Corbeil, Ontario, on the southern outskirts of North Bay in 1934. This miraculous birth had a tremendous impact on tourism in the area. No in vetro fertilization at that time. In fact, the Dionnes may have saved the economy in the district during the Depression and beyond. North Bay and area lived off this legacy well into the 1960s. Many visitors to the area discovered lakes and summer retreats that were easily accessible and the businesses thrived on the tourist dollars .Due to its strategic location, North Bay eventually became a divisional terminus for three major railways unique in Canada, the CNR, CPR, and ONR.

When the Dionne quintuplets were born, a special power line to their home was built to provide the infants with electricity for their incubators. The Nipissing System generated that power. Times have changed. In 1950, the three power plants became part of the Ontario Hydro grid through the North Bay Transformer Station, which now supplies additional electrical en­ergy to the area. By mid-1970, greater capacity was provided through Trout Lake Trans­former Station at North Bay. Electrical operators at this location now super­vise the operation of the three original plants by remote control.(this is where I worked from 1970/1988 and retired). We also controlled the district power to transformer stations and rural supply. We remotely controlled 2 other generating stations Crystal Falls(8 megawatts) and Otto Holden(240 megawatts). Today's power consumption dwarfs the old system on the South River which once was so vital. Where at one time all customers in Hydro's Nipissing System we...

ELLIOTT CHUTE Elliott Chute Generating Station, third and final Ontario Hydro power station on the South River, began to operate in 1929. It was remotely controlled by operators at Bingham Chute, located two miles downstream. This station contains just one generator, which is of a more advanced design than those in the older South River hydro stations, and has the respectable capacity of 1400 kilowatts. NIPISSING SYSTEM TODAY The old Nipissing System seems very small by today's standards. Other hydro-electric stations produce power measured in megawatts, not kilowatts. In fact, the water power, once known as "white coal", now produces less than half the electricity in Ontario. These small stations were the very life-blood of the Nipissing district power system. Operating staff manned the buildings night and day, as the generating stations supplied all the power required by Callander, Nipis­sing, North Bay, Powassan and surrounding area.

BINGHAM CHUTE Bingham Chute Generating Station was the next hydro-electric power plant built on the South River. Ontario Hydro began its construction in 1923, and by March of 1924, added 800 kilowatts of electricity to the system.Situated at the west end of Powassan, the entire development consists of a control dam, a water intake with headworks, 350 ft. of woodstave penstock - eight ft. in diameter, a powerhouse containing the two generators, 50 acres of land, and 150 acres of flooded area, all owned by Hydro. The generators housed at Bingham Chute came from the Nipis­sing plant, which had been outfitted with higher capacity generators in 1923.

NIPISSING Nipissing Generating Station is located two miles east of the village for which it is named, and about 16 miles south of North Bay. Originally owned by the Nipissing Power Co., this plant has a view-dominating surge tank for relieving water pressure on the single steel penstock (main water pipe) which feeds the turbines of two generating units. The intake, served by a canal, is quite a distance from the powerhouse, so water is directed through a wooden stave pipeline connecting with the steel penstock. The station can produce 2,100 kilowatts. Ontario Hydro, which was establish­ed in 1906, purchased both the Nipissing Power Co. and the North Bay Light, Heat and Power Co. The year was 1916 when the two local compan­ies once fierce rivals , sold their combined property and equip­ment to the publicly-owned utility.

EARLY ELECTRICITY First electrical power available to the public on the east shores of Lake Nipissing was established in 1885. A steam engine, which operated a North Bay lumber mill, was hooked to an electric generator at night. This provided power for evening lighting only. The North Bay Steam Plant was destroyed by fire in 1893 and replaced by a larger station which suffered the same fate as its predecessor in 1923. However, this did not leave the district without a supply of electricity as a hydro-powered generating stations had been built on the South River in 1909.They provided additional power for growing demands and established a 24-hour supply of electricity.

Populations in the late 1800’s are difficult to determine as Ontario and Quebec were named Upper and Lower Canada, respectively. North Bay continued to grow populations recorded are approximate: 1884 - The Village of North Bay 500 residents 1891 - North Bay a Town 1914 - Population 7,000 1917 - Population 10,000 1925 - North Bay a City 1945 - Population 16,000 1949 - Population 18,057 1957 – Population 35,000 1968 – Population 43,716 Population increased dramatically in 1968 when the Townships of Widdified and West Ferris were amalgamated and the population zoomed to 43,716. The 2006 census listed North Bay as 53,966.

The area was first explored by Samuel de Champlain.Explorations of the Ottawa and Hudson rivers, Lake Nipissing and Huronia in1615-1616. Apart from First Nations tribes, voyageurs and surveyors, there was little activity in the Lake Nipissing area until the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1882. The CPR started its westward expansion from Bonfield, Ontario (previously called Callander Station approx. 10 mi.) from North Bay where the first spike was driven into a sunken railway tie. Bonfield,Ontario was inducted into Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2002 as the CPR First Spike location. Throughout the shaping of the confederation plan Canadian representatives had played commanding roles, especially John A. Macdonald , lawyer, businessman, politician, first prime minister of Canada. Parliament endorsed a federal scheme with both English and French majorities in 1865, and in 1866 drafted constitutions for the successor provinces of Québec and Ontario.

The Nipissing Tribes were too far north to rely on agriculture so they became hunters and gatherers. The family hunting grounds formed the basis of their social economic organization and intruders into the family hunting area were liable to be put to death. Although some of the neighbouring tribes were said to have feared the Nipissings for their sorcery, they were active in trade for a long time before the arrival of the Europeans. They first became known to the French, in 1613.Nipissing Tribes had been attacked, by the Iroquois, and many of them slain , in 1650, they fled for safety to Lake la Langue Algonquine. They were a comparatively unwarlike people, firm friends of the French, readily accepting the Christian teachings of the missionaries. They had established home sites but were semi-nomadic, going south in autumn to the vicinity of the Hurons to fish and prepare food for the winter, which they passed among them. They cultivated the soil to a slight extent only, traded with the...

North Bay and Area Sept.18/09 Nipissing District was formed in and around 1858. North Bay is the largest community in this area.The origin of the word Nipissing refers to a native American tribe who lived along the lake which bears their name, Lake Nipissing. Early Algonquin Tribes were a remote, northern nation far removed from the Central American seat of this civilization.They traded goods with the Iroquois and others and were dependant upon crops, such as corn, squash and tobacco that had been developed farther south. In exchange they gave dried meat and furs. The Nipissing Tribe "people of the little water," a reference to their main location on Lake Nipissing,a branch of the Ojibway Tribal Organization, part of the Algonquin linguistic group, that dominated in the eastern woodlands of North America. They occupied the important area between the Ottawa and French Rivers which linked couruer de bois(runners of the woods) to the St. Lawrence Seaway therefore very importa...

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