Link with a Lonely Land: The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway

W.H. Heick is a professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Link With a Lonely Land is another example of the love affairs that the steam-operated railroads have engendered. Even more importantly, this monograph is a sound contribution to the social history of Northern Ontario.

The 44 years of the history of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway encompassed in this book were the years from its construction until the arrival of diesel engines in 1946 and the coincidental name change to Ontario Northern Railway. These four decades span the extension of service to James Bay at Moosonee; its support of the economic development and settlement of this unique quarter of Ontario, in particular; the success of three great metal strikes; and the work to rebuild the company and its constituency after three major forest fires. Within this framework there is also a history of technology as the railroad kept abreast of the changes in the structure of steam engines. The roles of ancillary services such as hotels, lake boats, electric rail cars, and telegraph lines are also recounted. As well, the biographical story is told: the dedicated involvement of the numerous persons who made the T. and N.O. the centre of their lives and a success from all points of view. Finally, as an example of the broader role the railway played in the life of the area, there is the support of education in Northern Ontario through the operation of the school car. Here indeed the aptness of the title becomes evident.

From the more narrow point of view of the railway buff, the book provides a large number of pictures of the various steam engines owned by the T. and N.O., and of stations and other buildings used by the railroad. Appendices include a tabulation of the vital statistics of all of the steam engines owned over the four decades.

The T. and N.O. is a fine example of the positive role of the crown corporation in the functioning of Canadian society. It accomplished a task in nation-building that private enterprise could not have managed by itself.

The people to whom Michael Barnes addresses his work are the aficionados of the steam railway and the general readers of history. There is no attempt at documentation. A selected bibliography provides some insight into the extensive range of his research.