HISTORY OF THE REGION 



The principal headwaters of the system are, however, situated on 

 private lands in the central part of Haliburton county, more especially 

 in the townships of Sherborne, Havelock, Eyre, Stanhope, Guilford, 

 Harbum, Minden, Dysart and Dudley. These headwaters consist of 

 a series of connected lakes of not less than 130,000 acres of water 

 surface, which is not under control of the Dominion. The feeders to 

 the canal, under the control of the Dominion, lie in nine different basins, 

 comprising over 100,000 acres of water surface. These nine basins are, 

 the Gull river and the Burnt river , the two largest, and, in sequence 

 of their size, the Mississagua, Jack creek. Eels creek, Deer Bay creek, 

 Nogie creek, Buckhom creek, and Squaw river. Exclusive of lakes 

 Simcoe and Couchiching (with 283 square miles of water surface), the 

 total water area of the canal and its feeders covers nearly 300 square 

 miles. 



When the Dominion took over these watercourses it immediately 

 repaired the old wooden dams or replaced them by concrete structures, 

 organized a systematic management of the waterflow, and, as a result, 

 doubled the waterflow at Peterborough and at other power-houses 

 without interfering with, but rather improving, the operations of the 

 lumbermen. 



Meanwhile, the lumber industry has dwindled to one-tenth of its 

 size in 1872, the pine cut in 191 1 being less than 18 million feet, out 

 of a total cut of approximately 42 million feet B.M. of lumber. By the 

 time the last pine log is cut, which will be probably within five years, 

 or thereabout, the cheap transportation which would have made a 

 conservative forest policy possible will be just established. 



The first part of the problem is how to develop and foster small 

 industries along the more than 160 miles of completed waterway, in 

 order to make the most of the horse-power available,* and of the re- 

 maining wood supplies ; the second part concerns the building up of 

 the timber production in order to provide future local traffic on the 

 canal, as well as to conserve the waterflow for the development of water- 

 powers along its line, and for the maintenance of a sufficient supply of 

 water in the canal after its completion. 



The agricultural settlement of most of the region was a con- 

 comitant or consequence of the lumber industry, and in many, if not 

 most cases, was dependent for its financial success entirely on that 

 industry. Owing to its geological history, the country very rarely 

 exhibits really agricultural soils. As Dr. Coleman in a memorandum 

 on the geology of the region states, "The combination of kames (hills 

 of sand and gravel with boulders) with pure sand deposits, through 



*More.than 100,000 H.P. 



