Lost Channel

History

Lost Channel still exists, mainly as a summer lodge. The former Lost Channel bunkhouse now offers fishing, hunting, boating and the enticing opportunity to choose your own native, baby Massasauga rattler, from the rattlesnake enclosure displayed prominently at the entranceway.

Lost Channel’s unusual name came about when “Black Jack” Kennedy accidentally boomed timber in a little bay which he named Lost Channel. A small dock, a steamboat named Douglas, and warehouse, owned by Captain Edgar Walter, serviced the area for all travellers, jobbers, and log drivers.

Things began to pick up in 1914, when the Lauder, Spears and Howland Company built a small sawmill near the water site. Transportation through the bush trail to the nearest railway siding was difficult and hazardous, to say the least. There was only one way to move the lumber. They hauled it along a rough tote road to the siding at Mowat, some 20 kilometres south. In order to remain competitive, the company decided to build a small rail line. They planned to connect it to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) mainline at the Pakesley Siding, located 16 kilometres west. They drew up plans for the Key Valley Railway and began the construction in 1914,

Unfortunately the Howland Company ran out of money before they were able to complete the rail line. Financial problems forced them to sell the mill and all the timber limits. The new owner was the Schroeder Mills and Timber Company, an American firm based in Wisconsin. The head of Canadian operations was James Ludgate. Ludgate went on to establish his own mill in a nearby community that went on to bear his name.

Schroeder Mills continued the expansion efforts and went on to complete the Key Valley Railway. They built an entirely new worker’s village that included new bunkhouses, a dozen cabins for workers with families, a school, a small hospital, cookery and a general store. They added another 35 homes later. However time was running out. Serious depletion of the timber limits by 1927 determined the mill was no longer economical to operate. Schroeder sold out to James Playfair who changed the company name to the Pakesley Lumber Company. Playfair switched operations to concentrate mainly on hemlock, spruce and jack pine.

Playfair was able to make a go of things for a while and was shipping over 150,000 board feet per day from September to December. Unfortunately tragedy struck on November 1, 1930 when a fire broke out in the rail shop. It quickly spread to the mill, destroying it. Playfair managed to rebuild the mill before the new timber season however by 1933, he decided the operation was no longer viable and shut it down. The golden age of lumbering in the Georgian Bay had finally come to a close.

In a later move, they dismantled the mill and sold it for scrap. The village was completely abandoned by 1940. Today the remains of the village lie hidden on the north side of the cove and rail bed, gradually being overtaken by a new forest.