Willisville, Ontario

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willisville is a community in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is located in the geographic township of Mongowin, approximately 16 kilometres (10 miles) south of Espanola in the Sudbury District.

The picturesque village of Willisville is on the Charlton - Cranberry - Frood Lake system at the north entrance of Killarney Provincial Park in the heart of the La Cloche Mountains.

Although not part of an incorporated municipality, a local service board jointly administers services in Willisville and the neighbouring community of Whitefish Falls. The two communities are also jointly counted as a single designated place in Canadian censuses.

[edit] Fire tower history

An 80 foot high fire tower was built on Willisville Mountain in the 1920's by the Dept. of Lands and Forests.

View from fire tower June 1980

The tower was ran by John Burke in the early years. One day, while he was looking out to spot forest fires from the tower's cupola, he saw a herd of elephants at the bottom of the mountain trail. He called back to headquarters on his bushphone and relayed his sighting. Nobody believed him at first; that is, until locals learned that a local circus truck had broken down and the elephants inside had gotten loose.

The tower is also famous because of two men who signed the towerman's guestbook: world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis and singer Bing Crosby.

The tower was dismantled in 1986, but the mountain still remains a popular place for tourists to climb.