LOST CHANNEL AND PAKESLY

NAME: Lost Channel and Pakesly COUNTY: -- ROADS: 2WD GRID: 1 CLIMATE: Snow in Winter, Warm Summer. BEST TIME TO VISIT: Summer

COMMENTS: Worth Seeing. REMAINS: Original buildings throughout newer ones.

These two ghost towns are among the best of the many that lie along the shoreline of northern Parry Sound. Both were lumber towns that had their beginning during the 1890s. Railroads had not yet reached the forests of northern Parry Sound. Logs were floated down river to Georgian Bay and then on to the mills at Victoria Harbour. The Canadian Northern Railway completed their line into the area in 1905. A mill was built at Pickerel River at the head of a deep bay known as Lost Channel. Lumber was then hauled by teams of horses to a railway siding at Mowat over a rough and rocky road of about twenty kilometers. In 1912, the impassable road was replaced by a railway spur line that was known as the Key Valley Railway. Towns grew at each end of the Key Valley line. At the mill site, the town was known as Lost Channel. Here was a boarding house, school, hospital, cabins for workers with families, and a blacksmith shop. At the other end of the end of the line was the town of Pakesley. Here was a hotel, post office, store, restaurant, and a forest fire headquarters. Of the two towns, the first to become a ghost town was Lost Channel in 1933. Pakesley lasted until the late 1950s. Submitted by: Henry Chenoweth

BACK