Display Highlights

Following are a few interesting highlights of bygone years that you will find displayed throughout the Museum:

• A clay pot from the Laurel Culture, believed to be over 2,000 years old, is on display at the Museum. It is one of three pots that were unearthed during an archeological dig in 1980 from the Wenasaga Rapids site.  It was the first time that so many reconstructable vessels were found together.  Only two other pots from that era exist, one was from a site in Northern Minnesota and the other from a site near Thunder Bay.
  
  
• The first white residents came to Pine Ridge, now known as Goldpines, in the early 1800's.  They came with the first Hudson Bay Post in approximately 1840. That original post is now under water due to the flooding, which occurred when the hydro dam was built. Another Hudson Bay Post was built in about 1927 and is now the location of Gold Pines Camp. The main building at this camp is the same one that housed this post.  In the early 1940's Goldpines was the largest air freighting base in the world. Ear Falls never opened up as a trade center until the 1950's.
   
• There were 32 gold rushes to this area between 1926 and 1929.
   
• In the early 1930's the Patricia Transportation Company operated a fleet of five tugs between the four portages between Ear Falls and Red Lake.  The portages were known as Ear Falls Portage, Sams Portage, Snake Falls Portage and Snowshoe Falls Portage. The five tugs were the Halapci, Canval, Patricia (now restored and on display at the Waterfront), Standard and the Northern Prince.
   
• The Hydro Dam in Ear Falls was constructed in 1927-28 and power was turned on to Red Lake on Christmas Day 1929.
   
• Construction on Highway 105 began in the mid 1940's and it was officially opened in August of 1947 by the Honourable George Drew, Premier of Ontario.

COME VISIT THE MUSEUM TO LEARN EVEN MORE ABOUT THE FASCINATING HISTORY OF OUR COMMUNITY.