Clay Belt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Clay Belt is a vast tract of fertile soil in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, between the area of Cochrane, Ontario, and Abitibi County, Quebec covering around 29 million acres in total. It is generally subdivided into the Great Clay Belt to the north running eastward from Kapuskasing, and the Lesser Clay Belt to its south, running from Englehart down to the Wabi River to the northern tip of Lake Temiskaming. The Clay Belt is the result of the draining of the glacial Lake Ojibway around 8,000 B.C., who's lakebed sediment forms the modern landform. The Clay Belt is surrounded by Canadian Shield, forming an island of "southern flatlands" in the midst of the hilly and rocky surroundings. Similar "glaciolacustrine deposits" dot the northern areas of Ontario, Quebec and Labrador.
The area was first mapped by Dr. Robert Bell and his assistant Arthur Barlow in 1887, as part of a wider series of surveys in northern Ontario. In 1899, Barlow wrote a report on the geology and natural resources of the area, which suggested that the rich belt of clay that lay north of Lake Temiskaming was ideal for agricultural settlement. The following year, the government announced plans to develop the area by tapping its natural resources
The Canadian government encouraged immigrants to settle there as farmers during and after World War I.Governments of the day were mistakenly impressed with the agricultural potential of the Great Clay Belt. |For example, in Kapuskasing, a federal government experimental farm had been established on the west side of the river to explore and develop crops and systems for farming the area. Under the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Act of 1917 the Kapuskasing Soldier Colony was established to settle veterans returned from the Great War. Settlers received homesteads, grants and guaranteed loans and were paid for clearing their own land. But by 1920 only nine of more than a hundred original settlers remained. The farming consisted of some grains, mostly oats, and vegetables. In spite of numerous rocky outcrops some farming was successfully established within the Great Clay Belt, however, it proved to be impractical because of the short growing season. The clay soil is tremendously fertile. However, long snowy winters coupled with unpredictable rainfall during the short growing season meant most farming yielded little for a lot of back breaking work. One farmer, describing why he returned to urban life, stated that, in the Great Clay Belt, "there are seven months of snow, two months rain, and all the rest is black flies and mosquitoes."
By 1935, immigration to the Great Clay Belt virtually ended. Some of the farmers eventually returned to Toronto and Montreal. Some moved west to the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta once the National Transcontinental Railway was completed. Many of the farmers shifted to mining once minerals were found in the area. Others entered the logging industry. Some towns still remaining today include Cochrane, New Liskead, Timmins, Kapuskasing, and even as far west as Hearst.
The Little Clay Belt is an area analogous to the Great Clay Belt, and likewise is located in Northeastern Ontario. Unfortunately, neither the Great nor the Little Clay Belt seems able to attract any sort of sustainable industry to employ people for long periods of time. Both regions go through periodic "boom and bust" cycles, depending upon the fortunes of the pulp and paper industries, and the mining industries. Most high school graduates move away to attend college or university; then never come back.
[edit] Sources
- McDermott, George L. Frontiers of Settlement in the Great Clay Belt, Ontario and Quebec. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol 51, No. 3 (Sep. 1961)pp. 261 -273.
- Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Crown Land Use Policy Atlas, Policy Report G1855: Great Clay Belt (Jan. 2006)
- Pugh, Don The Northern Ontario Great Clay Belt Hoax, video, Google.com
