For centuries, boats and trains have had a way of capturing imaginations.

Generations of children grew up playing with toy trains and boats, while their adults counterparts worked hard to advocate for south central Ontario railways and canals.

The village of Fenelon Falls was incorporated in 1874, to allow the community to vote on a bonus to attract the Victoria Railway, later renamed Midland, Grand Trunk, then CNR. Work began on the railway that August. It opened to Kinmount on Nov. 9, 1876 and Haliburton two years later.

Much of the track was laid along the shores of waterbodies to reduce the need for filling to keep the tracks at an acceptable grade. At Fenelon Falls, it crossed the Fenelon River at its mouth on Cameron Lake. The lakeshore (now Garnet Graham Park) was home to the Cameron Lake Foundry. Having a railway connection would be convenient. The lakeshore later housed the Napanee Mills Paper Company, Standard Chemical Company and a sawmill. The 1876 bridge, constructed close to the top of a cascade above Fenelon Falls was a fixed system.

Should the Trent Valley Canal be viewed as a vital through shipping route linking Lake Huron with Lake Ontario, a fixed bridge would create problems.

The fastest and most economical way for long distance travel and shipment, the railway was extremely important to the region. Industries were created that never would have been viable without the railway such as exporting ice from Cameron Lake or quarried stone from Burnt River. In both cases, these bulky materials were harvested immediately beside the tracks.

Yet, local promoters also dreamed of being on a through waterway. Many of the strongest advocates were businessmen who would profit from the routes’ completion.

Ironically, many of these entrepreneurs were the same people who were using the railway to ship goods for their business, and ought to have known that the railway had every economic advantage. The Welland Canal had already been built, so there was no realistic prospect that Great Lakes shipments would wind their way through the narrow Trent and Severn Rivers. Nevertheless, lobbyists continued to insist that the Trent Valley Canal was the best through waterway for commercial shipments. Politicians, like John A. Macdonald, saw it as a way to buy votes; albeit at staggering costs to the public purse. He raised the possibility of further work on the waterway during the 1878 election, and, just before the 1882 election, commissioned Tom Rubidge to make surveys at Burleigh Falls, Buckhorn and Fenelon Falls. On the eve of the election the tenders were posted, and when Macdonald was re-elected, the contracts were let. He had parlayed this round of improvements into two electoral victories locally.

Anyone who expected that these announcements would mean that the lock would soon be functional was disappointed. The contractor completed the masonry work by 1885, but the lock gates were not installed until 1887. William MacArthur was appointed lockmaster on Nov. 26, 1887 — with an annual salary of $250 — but boats could not use the locks because the river was blocked by a ridge of stone and the fixed railway bridge. The federal government had spent $125,530 on the locks and was paying a........

© Peterborough Examiner