FERGUS MILL, ONTARIO                                 
 ONTARIO, the name for the region west of the Ottawa River and north of the Great Lakes dates from the Canadian Confederation of 1867. Before then, the area was known as Canada West, and before 1841, Upper Canada. Before 1791 it was called "the upper parts of the Province of Quebec" and before 1763 it was "le pays d'en haut" - the upper country of New France.

 All told, water accounts for about 12 per cent of Ontario's total geographic area. In modern Ontario, virtually all the major highways and rail corridors follow the historic waterways. The total area of present day Ontario is more than one million square kilometres. This makes it the second largest province in Canada. It also makes it considerably larger than either California or Texas in the United States, or France and the United Kingdom combined

 WATERMILLS IN ONTARIO  The history of central Canada is a story of mills. Settlement by pioneers from England, Scotland and Ireland at first began in the early 1800's. Still in Southern Ontario, it was later, in the mid 1800's that more northern routes were opened, and mass settlement began in the latter part of the 1800's. As remote areas were opened for settlement, grist mills were the nucleus of the villages. Wherever a river or stream provided sufficient power, a lumber and/or grist mill was constructed. A general store and blacksmith shop followed, and as the population grew, schools and churches were built. Many of the poorer communities disappeared when the Prairies were opened up for settlement in the mid to late 1800's, the mills and houses abandoned and the settlers headed west. The production of prairie wheat also made Southern Ontario less important as a wheat growing region and many more mills were closed. Most important, the development and routes of the railroad system in the late 1800's spelled the doom of many communities. The ones lucky enough to be on the railway routes thrived because of fast access with goods to the south and to America. A lumber mill was built right below our Canadian National Parliament building in the capital city of Ottawa! The first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald felt that there should be industry visible from Parliament Hill to show the hard working ethics of Canadians. There is a picture of it on the back of the four dollar bill of 1900
      Photograph taken in 1884

When exploring the countryside and hunting for locations of watermills in South Ontario, I experience a feeling of another time in the very space that I am living in - a transparent overlay of a time long disappeared that shows itself, the more I look. The ghosts of another time are there. Mills were essential to the settling of Ontario and Canada. When the pioneers arrived here looking for land there was no food each day except that which you produced yourself- (gristmills for bread), no clothing except that which you made yourself- spinning, weaving and later, (woolen mills), water from the rivers, heat from the wood you cut yourself, houses and shelter that you built yourself (lumber mills). No medical care except home remedies, not a doctor within a weeks travel, often further, and no hospitals. The first homes, shanties and soddies were crude shelters with a dirt floor, and often no windows. The sawmill meant that the settlers could replace them with wooden houses from sawed lumber, a huge improvement. Further research revealed that the crossroads that my home, a converted one room school house for pioneer children, is situated on, had its own mill, stagecoach hotel for travel from Toronto to Owen Sound, a blacksmith and a few houses. In settler times it was a busy place and now, it is just a country crossroad. A special mention should be made of the watermills and the Indian population here in the early 1800's and the settlement of Southern Ontario. The government, for its military routes and the settlers for their own use were intent on getting the best land possible.

 http://www.innisfil.library.on.ca/natives/natives/chp15.htm

I am familiar with the area around Coldwater and Georgian Bay. It has very desirable fertile flat land, relatively easy to clear of the forest and turn to agricultural land and the rocks and lakes of the Muskokas are to the north. The government (in 1830) built the first sawmill in Georgian Bay at the mouth of the Severn River. Thirteen houses, a sawmill, six log shanties, a meeting house/ school and a house for the superintendant were built in Coldwater for the Indian reserves. In 1833 a gristmill was constructed in the village, financed by Indian funds, to grind the grains grown on the 280 acres of land on the reserve cleared by the Assance indian band and supposedly to provide an income for the Chippewa Indians living on the reserve nearby. But once the Chippewa Indians let the mill stand idle for two years it was put up for sale by the goverment. Sir John Colborne, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada from 1828 to 1836, decided that native people, having legally ceded title to the land, should be removed to reserves

COLDWATER RESERVE MILL
  The reserves established under Colborne were intended to teach the native people to farm like Europeans, enlighten them about Christianity and to "civilize" them in general. The thinking behind this policy was that native people could only survive if they assimilated the ways of "western civilization". One must wonder how they survived prior to the invasion of the European settlers. Reserves were established throughout the province, usually on unproductive land that the settlers did not want, in which the natives would receive "instruction" from missionaries and various Indian agents. Lieutenant-Governor Bond Head "persuaded" the Chippewa in 1836 to move to Indian reserves at Rama, Snake Island, Beausoleil Island, and Christian Island and "surrender" the land on the "public high road leading from Coldwater to the Narrows on Lake Simcoe". By the terms of the surrender treaty, the Indians were to be paid annual interest on the proceeds from the future sales of the land to settlers. Although the chiefs wrote to Governor Sir Charles Bagot complaining that they had not received any payments, and making it clear that the sawmill in Port Severn and the gristmill in Coldwater were not part of the land sale, the mills were acquired from the Indians. There are no records of any legal transaction and no payments were ever made. The promise to the Indian bands of the Coldwater Reserve and other reserves like it in the province had been swept aside for the purpose of acquiring all arable land for white settlers. Native bands in Southern Ontario would find themselves living on rocky infertile places with agriculture proving almost impossible in the years to come.                       
LESS THAN TWO CENTURIES LATER January21 2003 Toronto's new wind turbine has been completed. The 30 storey high turbine cost a total of $1.8 million, with half the funding provided by Toronto Hydro and the rest by city residents who bought shares in the turbine. On Jan. 21 2003, it began contributing to the city's main power source. Lagerwey Windturbine International B.V.,a Dutch-based manufacturer, was chosen for the contract It is the first wind turbine erected in the City of Toronto and the first in a downtown urban setting in Canada and North America. The turbine stands thirty stories tall and has the capacity to power up to 250 homes. Electricity from the wind yields no emissions, no waste, and is 100% green.
 In general, there are two types of vertical waterwheels, the undershot and the overshot, which is the more efficient of the two. Both varieties of the vertical waterwheel require the use of gears to transfer the motive force of the water to the milling mechanism There are several disadvantages to the undershot waterwheel. One being in the manner in which the water's power is utilized. The undershot waterwheel rests directly in the stream and depends upon the force of the water to push the wheel. Besides inefficiently harnessing the stream's force, the undershot wheel also requires a rather substantial and constant supply of water, and can become useless at times of low water-flow. Because of the need for a constant and steady water supply, it is most often the undershot wheel that is found in association with a millpond.
The overshot water wheel, on the other hand, more efficiently harnesses the force of the stream and is far less dependent upon streamflow. In fact, the overshot wheel can be operated at some distance from the actual stream or water source. Water can be brought to the overshot wheel by means of a flume or pipe. From the flume, the water drops onto the wheel's paddles, harnessing both the force of the water and of gravity.
The mechanical principles underlying the working of a water- powered mill are, from the hindsight of the 20th century, quite simple. Whether undershot or overshot, the water propels the wheel, which transfers the water's power to the drive-shaft, which turns the millstones.
 


The subject of watermills in Ontario and the settling and developing of the province is huge. This page touches the surface and is to show that, although our mills are not so visible as in the Netherlands or have disappeared with time, they were the foundation on which the province was built.
 I am closing this chapter with a plaque acknowledging the 15 dutch families who, in 1934, with the co-operation of the Dutch Government settled a marsh area north of Toronto and turned it to one of the most fertile agricultural areas in Ontario. It was part of Canada's war effort during WW2 to produce from the Holland Marsh as high a yield of food as possible, and school children worked here in the fields to aid the war effort

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