Depot Harbour

[5] However, the high prices demanded by local landowners prompted him in 1895 to choose a location on nearby Parry Island,[5][6] 10 kilometres (6 miles) away.

[7] Early that year, Booth's surveyors trespassed on the Indian reserve to run lines from Rose Point Narrows to the site.

[5] It was the shortest route for shipping grain to the Atlantic,[10] with trains arriving and departing every twenty minutes,[11] and was known as the best natural harbour on the Great Lakes.

The reconstruction of the Welland Canal in 1932, along with 1933 abandonment of a portion of the line in Algonquin Provincial Park (as a consequence of the Cache Lake trestle being damaged by ice),[5] and a drop in grain prices during the Great Depression, contributed to a loss of importance for Depot Harbour, and the CNR closed the facilities in favour of its own at South Parry.

During World War II, cordite manufactured in nearby Nobel was stored in the railway's dockside freight sheds across the inlet from the grain elevators.

Flying embers carried by the wind, landed on the roofs of the freight sheds, setting off explosives which destroyed whatever remained of the harbour facilities.

[5] After the debris had been cleared away from the site of the burnt-down grain elevators, the wharf was used as a distribution terminal for the Century Coal Company, a subsidiary of Canada Steamship Lines.