[10] It was chartered on August 19,[citation needed] 1780,[2] after Pyotr Shuvalov had sold his rights to fell timber to English industrialists who built several sawmills there.

[11] Onega is a minor port on a bay on the White Sea, which routinely freezes in winter.

The railroad was built during World War II to secure the transport of goods from the harbor of Murmansk to central Russia.

The scheme involved delivering oil by river tanker, over the canal and into a floating transfer terminal near the Osinki Island in the Onega Bay, 36 km north-west of the port of Onega, for transfer to Latvian seagoing tankers.

This time, oil would be delivered by the railway to the Shendunets station nearby, and pumped to the floating terminal by an underwater pipeline.

[13] Kiy Island, offshore from Onega, and the surrounding ice fields were used as the location for filming A Captive in the Land in the winter of 1989–1990.