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WORK UNFINISHED: THE MAKING OF THE TRENT-SEVERN WATERWAY
Publisher:
Severn
Publications Ltd.
Author: James
T. Angus
See larger
cover sample
Price:
$28 CAN/$20 US
(plus postage)
ISBN: 0-9694197-3-2
Year: 2000
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 176
Photos: 300 photos and sketches
(See
sample of photos)
Category: History
"The Trent Canal - now the 384-km-long Trent-Severn
Waterway - is a typical outcome of the conflict between
history and geography, a struggle between humans and
nature from which humans benefited," writes James
T. Angus in the introduction to A Work Unfinished:
The Making of the Trent-Severn Waterway. Opening of
the Couchiching lock (No. 42) in July, 1920 marked
the final phase in the 90-year struggle to convert
the natural chain of rivers and lakes between Georgian
Bay and Lake Ontario into a navigable watercourse.
With a finely crafted text and over 300 illustrations,
Angus tells how the "foot soldiers of history" - local
politicians and merchants who promoted the canal and
engineers who designed and built it - gradually overcame
nature's many obstacles to navigation with 44 locks
and an equal number of dams.
Angus explains why the last set of locks planned for
Big Chute on the Severn River was never built (marine
railways were substituted), ensuring that the waterway
remains an unfinished work. Other unfinished sections
include a bypass canal at Big Chute, a Little Go Home
Bay outlet into Georgian Bay, and the Newmarket extension.
These projects, abandoned at various stages of construction,
are discussed and illustrated. Other waterway subjects
the book treats are hydroelectric power development,
lumbering, tourism and the steamer trade, engineers,
bridges, and politics.
A Work Unfinished makes an ideal companion on Trent-Severn
cruises or as a resource book on summer cottage coffee
tables.
How to Order:
Severn
Publications Ltd.
95 Matchedash Street North, Suite 404
Orillia Ontario, Canada
L3V 4T9
Phone: (705) 329-2127
Fax: (705) 329-2127
E-Mail:
jangus@bconnex.net
MILLS
AND MILL VILLAGES OF SEVERN TOWNSHIP
Publisher:
Severn Publications Ltd.
Author: James
T. Angus
Price:
$28 CAN/$20 US
(plus postage)
ISBN: 0-9694197-2-4
Year: 1998
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 192
Photos: 150
Category: History
Description:
The Township of Severn, in the north extremity of
Simcoe County, was created in 1994 through the amalgamation
of several smaller municipalities.*
The township was blessed with some of the richest
timber stands in Ontario and so in 1875, the Midland
Railway of Canada extended its line from Orillia to
Georgian bay to freight timber and lumber out of the
district. Soon, like crystals forming on a string,
woodmills grew up along the railway that passed through
this boreal forest "super-saturated" with cedar, pine
and hardwoods.
Typically, a mill site contained a saw or shingle
mill or both, a blacksmith shop, a stable, a boarding-house,
and perhaps shacks for married couples. There were
many such tiny mill communities in Severn Township,
most of them not existing long enough to acquire names.
But some sites, such as Foxmead, Marchmont, Tait,
and Uhthoff grew to be quite large villages with stores,
a post office, a school, community halls and churches
and a railway station. Where the mills were very large,
big communities developed - Fesserton, Port Severn,
and Severn Bridge, for example. When the mills closed
down, the villages that supported them vanished too,
unless some other industry, such as tourism, arose
to maintain them. Grist mills of which there were
three in the township - Coldwater, Marchmont, and
Washago - tended to attract other businesses and industries,
creating a more diversified economic base; hence,
grist mill villages survived much longer than sawmill
villages.
In Mills and Mill Villages of Severn Township, James
T. Angus identifies 73 mill sites in the township.
With considerable archival detective work, he has
tracked down the mills, traced the backgrounds of
the millers who built them and reconstructed life
in many of the now extinct villages that surrounded
the mills. What emerges is a fascinating industrial
and social history of Severn Township. The book contains
over 150 rare photographs.
*Severn Township was created in 1994 through the
amalgamation of the municipalities of Matchedash Township,
Orillia Township (north division and part of south
division), part of Tay Township, including Port Severn
and Fesserton, and part of Medonte Township, including
the Village of Coldwater.
How to Order:
Severn Publications Ltd.
95 Matchedash Street North, Suite 404
Orillia Ontario, Canada
L3V 4T9
Phone: (705) 329-2127
Fax: (705) 329-2127
E-Mail:
jangus@bconnex.net
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