Oral history sources complement the written beyond reading between the lines. Local people make it so.
Before you cross the secondary Hwy. 566 Montreal River bridge, from the east, you look up and see that 1960s peace symbol on the side of a rock face. It’s fading a little. Haven’t seen that icon for a while, and this is one of many stories here.
It is the first image of many for Matachewan, population circa 300, a bust and now booming gold mining community west of “KL City” and NW of Elk Lake at the junction of Highways 65 and 66. The stories and back road destinations rival the current gold mine’s operations.
On a previous visit, I sought out Jacob’s Cave. It was fortuitous that the counter person at the Dog Star general store directed me to Ken McCollam/Lindsay Cousineau and the ZZZ n’ Treats Restaurant, the only one in town. At the time Ken said the original wooden door to the cave-dwelling was to be in the new restaurant, and a mining/tourism bunkhouse was being planned. The former French Catholic school was purchased with the gymnasium complete with the sports lines on the floor. The furnishings, kitchen tables and chairs from the 1960’s. There’s no museum in Matachewan, this is it.
“Jacob” Jake Davidson helped put the town on the map along with Ken’s grandfather, Cliff, his partner. A promise was made with that initial story, to return. And with Brian Emblin from Timmins, we did recently.
Heritage Bridge and marker
Like most small places there is a plaque commemorating something or someone significant to the community.
At the heritage bridge pull-off by the Legion, there is a historical marker memorizing the 71-year life of the initial bridge that needed access to the area’s first gold mine. The Ashley Mine was a 1930 gold and silver property located 20 km WNW of Matachewan. The Ashley mine is a worthwhile visit to poke around what was.
One of the last standing and functional creosote bridges in Canada. The heritage bridge was constructed from salvaged pieces of the old bridge. Highway #566 is paved only to the most recent iteration of the Young-Davidson – Alamos Gold Mine – you can see the mountainous rock waste pile in the distance, it is a sign of current prosperity.
For round two it was indeed fortuitous to meet Ken and Lindsay, they are back roads, folks.
Ken has the story of the peace symbol and many more. Born in the Kirkland Lake hospital he was raised in the community, left for California and then returned to work as the town’s road grader.
Pictographs
With Ken in tow, the back roads day starts there’s with a short drive to Matachewan First Nation to reach our alternative boat launch location. It will save time and portage.
Chief Alex 'Sonny' Batisse (a well-known family name) sends along a welcoming bag of swag, along with Matachewan First Nation members J.P. Boucher and Ritchie Millen. They knew Back Roads Bill was visiting, I feel a little like a back roads’ celebrity but it is what transpires that creates special feelings of belonging.
We find out that John Paul is a left-handed guitar player and Ritchie, a former “shaft sinking miner for mining contractor Cemetation Canada” is indeed a character. His humour is infectious, and he weaves his land-based knowledge into our incessant dialogue.
This spring on May 25 the provincial government announced a treaty land entitlement (TLE) claim under Treaty #9, also known as the James Bay Treaty, signed in 1906.
Treaty #9 provided First Nations with 640 acres per family of five (128 acres per member). The Matachewan First Nation did not receive all the land to which it is entitled. In 2019, Canada provided approximately $16 million in compensation and a provision for the First Nation to seek to add at least 4,572 acres to reserve. We see the new nursing station and seniors home.
Soon enough we arrive at the steep enough gravel boat launch on the back side of an esker. Ritchie wades into the water with his high-top gum boots. J.P. expertly launches the two boats on trailers with the side-by-side ATV.
Off we go to visit the upper reaches of Lake Matachewan, the widening of the Montreal River. There are plenty of these esker ridges along the shoreline, indicators of past glacial movement, and we are at the upper reaches of the Great Lakes height of land.
We find the pictographs just past Red Pine Narrows as they are usually located on special rock faces. Ritchie shares there’s an oral legend about these morphs. “It is said Iroquois’ on one of their raids hundreds of years ago painted these.”
Because there are some thunderbird icons on the rock face I tell them more about what I know and have been taught about pictographs and they are appreciative of the new knowledge.
We leave a red-wrapped tobacco offering, that I brought along, to show our thanks. JP and Ritchie say a prayer. I am grateful for our new company this day and I sense we share moments of heritage that we all can appreciate. In a significant way, I think it is what truth and reconciliation can be. ‘Dances with Wolves’ comes to mind, but this day is not a 1990 movie.
Then it was on the way again to visit High Falls tumbling beside OPG’s water control dam. It is worth the visit and it can accessed by road on the west side from #566. The map will help with all the stops.
Then it was on the northeast end of the lake to the once-operating Thesaurus Gold Mine (1918). At the water’s edge there is an open mining adit, Ritchie immediately ventures in. He reappears and we find out that he actually owns the historic mining claim but has not been here for years. He offers us mining shares. I agree to be an investor. We leave in good spirits.
The fort, the river man and the bell
One of the many highlights of the day was the visit to the once bustling Fort Matachewan, a fur trading outpost that started in 1865, and closed in 1920.
The fort site is overgrown, but a few years back Ken said a community works program and interested volunteers created an innovative, not seen before by these eyes, kind of “MacGyver” boardwalk on the east side of the rapids; a logging bridge once crossed here at the narrows. If you have a canoe you can easily come alongside the parallel dock and ford the rapids. You can read the plaque of “many hands” placed on a tree. It has a protective highway guard rail rescued from an Elk Lake roads project to deflect ice away from the short boardwalk which serves as a landing. Yes, to “MacGyver.”
Believe it, like the International War Graves Commission there is an American Civil War soldier buried at Fort Matachewan with an honourable, USA government-provided headstone marker.
The upright white marble headstone is 13” wide, 3” thick and 42” long.
It reads “Stephen Lafricain Co. G. – 34th New York Infantry.” It is known he served in the Union Army for two years and was injured. In a May 1924 Beaver Magazine article he says “When the civil war broke out, I volunteered for service. I served round the Richmond and Petersburg fronts and in North Carolina till the surrender of General Johnston.” He served under General Ulysses Grant, was wounded and received a pension.
Lafricain was born in Labrador and was a long-standing employee of the Hudson Bay Co., entering the service in 1866. His last post was as the factor of Fort Matachewan, he received a long service gold medal award for 42 years with the company. The American headstone marker was requested by Matachewan community members after he died at age 99 in 1936.
His life is featured in the Bruce W. Taylor book, ‘’Stephen Lafricain – The Grand Old Man of the River’ a White Mountain Publication company in Cobalt.
Taylor says of Lafricain: “ He knew and counted as friends some of the most influential men in Canadian history, men such as Lord Strathcona, and Governor Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company. He saw Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, General Ulysses Grant, and the ill-fated General Custer. And, although none of the wealth of the land accrued to him in his wilderness homes, he lived with and even guided some of the famous prospectors who discovered the gold and silver mines in the north.
“Living for most of his life at the Fort Matachewan Hudson Bay Post, he befriended the native community, the prospectors, the hunters, trappers, the priests, and community leaders who came through the area with their various pursuits.” It is a detailed biography of someone who lived and worked in a wilderness setting.
The fort on a small hill is now overgrown. Ritchie and Ken take brush axes to where they recall where the grave marker is located.
Their memories are good a swath from the water’s edge is made up the slope to the found marker.
In jest Ritchie tells the story; that his ancestors did not much like the factor when bartering. “My grandmother told me when trading furs, on the weigh scale Stephen would add musket shot on his side of the pan balance.”
An amethyst rock was left for Stephen, and the surrounding unmarked graves, a Jewish custom when visiting grave sites.
Close by we find the former Roman Catholic (RC) steeple and the belfry, both lying on their sides among the dense vegetation.
Where’s the bell gone? Ken says it was moved to town to a new RC church.
“At one time, after the fort was closed, some First Nation families lived at the site and the church lived on.” It was later abandoned, post-1937, and many families went to town rather than to the reservation originally north of the fort established in 1906. The church building collapsed by 1974 and Nature has taken its course.
That “new” church eventually closed as the town shrank and entered its “bust” stage of a beckoning ghost town.
Later in the day, the bell is located, it still works. The municipality had moved it to the contemporary cemetery and there’s a small display and explanation.
There’s a French manufacturing logo embossed in the many layers of paint and a date. In Roman numerals, we know it was 1927 because in past school days, this arithmetic matriculation was taught (X means ten). Just things you don’t forget. The Internet says there were bell foundries in Montreal at that time.
Tom Fox
Then it was on to meet the four generations of the Tom Fox family. They escorted us by ATV to visit his gravesite.
It was purported in a 1930 Clevland newspaper that Tom Fox could “smell the gold.” You can read this account on the wall of the ZZZ restaurant. Fox guided white prospectors into the Matachewan area. He would have known of the exposed quartz veins on the surface, good indicators of gold.
He was an Indigenous trapper and prospector and along with friends, Ken’s grandfather and Jake Davidson, made the significant Matachewan gold discovery (McNeil Twp.) in 1923.
Tom died in 1936 and is buried just east of his cabin on Whitefish Lake (Ashley Lake). Jake Davidson made a compelling cement cross embedded with mineral samples, rifle shells and bear claws.
In the dead of winter, he took the cross by toboggan to the site. The inscription on birch bark under the remaining glass reads, “In memory of Tom Fox, Indian prospector and hunter, died Feb 132, 1936, age 78, RIP.” There are hand-cut rails around the plot.
Days before the visit the family had cleared windfall on the trail for us and we visited Tom. Jannette Gilbert, Tom’s granddaughter is now 75 and she talked about the man that she had never met. Her grandmother Mary (Adelaide), a trapper was not allowed to be buried (1971) beside her husband and is buried in the town cemetery.
There was another gratitude offering, this one braided sage that I had brought along, and another amethyst rock to leave behind.
More…
Two interesting timed events occur in Matachewan at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., there is a mass exodus and cavalcade of vehicles from the mine (two shifts of approximately 1,200 employees) headed to Kirkland Lake or Temiskaming Shores. Many mines do but there is no on-site mine accommodation here and few places to stay in the place that is translated in Anishinaabemowin as “where the river currents meet.”
In passing I also discovered that Glenn Bradley lived in Matachewan and was the “local space character.” People would gingerly across the street if they saw Glenn approaching. Matachewan is also known for its UFO sightings. There will be another story about one of the most interesting headstones in Northern Ontario.
So much to see. There’s a mini marine railway, and winch contraption near Old Woman Rapids on the river, north of the bridge. That’s neat to see. It is owned by visiting Americans to access their camps to transport small boats around the impassable rapids.
There’s a great more to know and this is found in another White Mountain Publication – ‘Just Passing Through’ - the people and places north of Matachewan by Frank Holley. There are old photos of characters “of a classic bush man’s life.”
You’re wondering, as to the peace symbol? Ken says at the time a wildfire of the day had razed the nearby rock face bare. In 1967 the peace symbol was first painted by young hippy-like locals in Canada’s Centennial year. He said, “It was the summer of love and four of them had seen the peace symbol on the front cover of Time Magazine at the local store.” Up they went and the white pictograph became a Matachewan welcoming signpost. The story goes that “fundamental Christian types thought the once nuclear disarmament symbol was akin to devil worship. They would cover it up and community members would respond with another new peace symbol.” Ken said it must have been painted fifty times, “there’s a lot of paint up there.” There’s now a plan to repaint what was and a trail to the top.
What a back roads whirlwind day that was. There’s more but that’s enough for now, there will have to be another story, especially about Glenn Bradley. An ask the Chief of Matachewan First Nation about his recent “photo opp” with Primer Minister Justin Trudeau.
Visit the ZZZ n’ Treats Restaurant “and museum,” see the door to the prospector’s cave and meet the community curators Ken and Lindsay.
So many personal stories on the back roads to listen to and then write down for posterity.
*(Also as an update the map link for last week’s story on Onion Lake incident, it is and the map link for the water diversion story here is the map link.
