25 Years of Madawaska Valley

Join us at Lakeshore Park on Saturday September 5 for a 25th Anniversary Celebration!

Featuring live music, free BBQ and cake, face painting for kids, and more!

Are you a local musician or act interested in playing at the MV 25th Anniversary Celebration?

Reach out! We're looking for three acts to play one hour timeslots on Saturday September 5. This is a paid gig with a sound system set up for your use. This is a paid gig. Contact recreation@madawaskavalley.ca. Include information on the type of music you play. 

On January 13, 1902, the Township of Radcliffe held their first meeting with John Hudson serving as Reeve. Radcliffe had existed in some form prior to this date – the Townships of Brudenell, Radcliffe, Raglan, and Lyndoch had been incorporated back in 1860. Radcliffe gained its independence in 1902, with Mr. Hudson as Reeve and William Boehme, James McKay, Thomas Mahon, and Joseph Mayhew serving as Councillors. Treasurer W.E. James and Clerk J.E.H. Miller rounded out the table. 

Only a year after the creation of the Township of Radcliffe, William Boehme is elected Reeve of Radcliffe. A tailer by trade, Boehme’s name may be recognizable to those who have researched the history of the Mayflower – Boehme was a passenger on the steamer when it sunk in 1912.

Meanwhile in Barry’s Bay, a new kind of industry came to town. Down Paugh Lake Road, Canada Turpentine Company Limited established a factory to extract tar and gum from tree stumps left behind from logging activities. At the time the largest industrial investment in Barry’s Bay, the factory employed thirty by 1907. Unfortunately the industry was short lived and the factory closed in July 1908. The site of the old factory changed hands a few times before being purchased by the Murray Brothers Lumber Company, who built a grading and planning facility on the land. After 33 years in operation, the machinery and equipment was moved to Madawaska.

While Barry’s Bay was seeing the growth of infrastructure, Combermere had an integral piece of theirs damaged – the Combermere Bridge, then a wooden structure, collapsed from the weight of a milk delivery, coming by horse and carriage. The bridge was repaired and eventually a steel swing bridge was put in its place.

Meanwhile, more turnover in the Reeve’s chair in Radcliffe: in 1906, John Hudson was once again elected into this office.

In Barry’s Bay, 1908 was the year John Omanique purchased the Morrison & Gwynn Lumber Company on Kamaniskeg. In 1912, the mill was renamed the Murray & Omanique Lumber Co when Thomas and Michael Murray joined the business. While it changed hands and had different names in the decades to follow, a mill ran on the lakeshore until about 1965, at one point holding the title of largest sawmill in Renfrew County and switching from circular saw to bandsaw to cut logs for J.R. Booth. Today, you can walk the Omanique Trail from the Mask Island Causeway to the Barry’s Bay Boat Launch.

Tragedy struck one evening in August 1909, when a trail derailed at Carson Lake. A washout caused portions of the track to fall into Carson Lake, and the engine, tender, and six cars rolled down an embankment. W.J. Thurston of Madawaska was the lone death in this accident at only twenty years old. In 2024, the Carson Trout Lepine & Greenan Lakes Association spent time investigating the derailment, and despite performing a dive could not find the wreckage. The organization erected a plaque at the site of the derailment and invited Thurston’s family to participate in an event in his honour.

1912 marked the sinking of the paddlewheel steamer Mayflower, which was used for freight, mail, and limited passenger service between Combermere and Barry’s Bay starting in 1904. On the evening of Tuesday November 12, the Mayflower left Barry’s Bay around 7pm and headed for Combermere with twelve souls onboard. A storm struck midway through the trip - the boat took on water suddenly and sunk quickly. Eight lives were lost in the sinking: the entire crew, as well as five passengers. Four other passengers managed to make it to a nearby island about 600 feet away, where one more succumbed to hypothermia. The survivors were rescued the next day and the Mayflower remains a popular diving site, as portions of the boat still remain at the bottom of Kamaniskeg. 

Also in 1912, Radcliffe saw a new Reeve – John Cole served just one year from 1912-1913.

In Wilno, the historic Wilno Tavern, then the Exchange Hotel, changed hands in 1913. Frank Shulist and Catherine Prince were the proud new owners of the establishment, who purchased it for just over $10,000. The building itself had been around since the late 1870s, when it was built to serve those travelling on the railway across the road. It was given the name Exchange Hotel in the early 1900s when it was purchased by Angus Slominski, who ran it until 1913 when it was sold to Shulist and Prince. The hotel offered room and board, had two separate beverage rooms, and at one point was even home to a bank and barber. The building was renamed Wilno Public House in 1975, and then to Wilno Tavern in 1979 when it operated strictly as a bar. In 1990, the dining room reopened and expanded and has been operating as a restaurant ever since.

In 1914, Charles B Dennison was elected as Reeve in Radcliffe, and also served as Warden of Renfrew County. The longest serving Reeve in Radcliffe’s history, Reeve Dennison held the post from 1914 to 1930.

In 1915, John O’Manique is elected Reeve of Sherwood, Jones and Burns. Yes – the same John O’Manique who owned the lumber mill on Kamaniskeg around the same time.

A few years later in 1918, a well-known institution in Combermere had a new owner. Archie Kernocha took over ownership of Valley Market General Store in this year and ran it until 1925, but he was the fourth owner of the store that had been in operation since 1859. It has had many names over the years, and in 2009 the store celebrated 150 years of continuous operation. This historical landmark in Combermere’s core still operates today jointly as Bent Bud and Bent Pizza.

In 1919, there was a new face in the Reeve chair in Sherwood Jones and Burns: Michael Conlin. 

Conlin served just one year, with Philip Blank elected in 1920. 

In 1921, SS#1 Radcliffe opened in Halfway, a school that allowed students to be educated closer to home. Before it opened, on land donated by Paul Smaglinskie, students further afield or studied at home. Halfway at the time was bustling, with the schoolhouse complimented by a stopping place or hotel, stables and barns, and later gas pumps and a restaurant. 

In 1923, the railway serving Barry’s Bay and Wilno was purchased by the Canadian National Railway. Originally owned by J.R. Booth’s Ottawa Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway System, trains began coming through out area in 1894 and resulted in massive growth throughout the region. The last scheduled trains came through in the early 1960s, though trains still used the tracks until the mid 1970s. Today, the track is a popular recreational trail and you can still visit Barry’s Bay’s original railway station in the heart of town.

In 1924, more action in Sherwood Jones and Burns council as Thomas Murray becomes Reeve. After serving our on municipal council, he moved on to provincial politics, first elected in 1929 as Member of Provincial Parliament for Renfrew South and re-elected three times: 1934, 1937, and 1943, before being defeated in the 1945 election and returning home. He died in October 1981 at the age of 101. Politics runs in the family: his grandson Sean Conway also served as MPP or our region from 1975-2003.

1930 saw political change across our communities.

In Sherwood Jones and Burns, Paul Mask is elected as Reeve. Mask will be a familiar name to many – it is he who Mask Island is named for, and he was the first owner of the Barry’s Bay Dairy. More on that in a few years though!

Over in Radcliffe, Fred Schweig is elected Reeve.

In 1933, the Town of Barry’s Bay is officially incorporated with Henry Chapeskie serving as its first Mayor. Barry’s Bay itself is a bit older: home to Indigenous peoples since time immemorial, the creation of the Opeongo Line brought the first European settlers, and the railway increased the population and growth dramatically. The town incorporated in 1933 comprised of 520 acres formally of the Township of Sherwood.

Tragedy struck Wilno in 1937, as Flora’s General Store burned to the ground due to a faulty chimney. The entire store, as well as the blacksmith shop next door, was lost. The Exchange Hotel (now Wilno Tavern) was also damaged in the blaze. Flora Blank was undeterred – she’d been running the store since 1933 in her late husband’s office, selling groceries and ice cream and was no stranger to hardship. After the fire, she built a new store that same year, which grew to sell everything from dry goods, footwear, hardware, and gas. The store was taken over by Flora’s daughter in 1953, and changed hands a number of times before closing its doors in the mid 2010s. The building that exists today is the same one Flora and her husband Felix Lazinskie built after the fire. Flora died in 1989 at the age of 85.

1938 was also a year for business in Barry’s Bay: Paul Mask opens his dairy this year, where the old Barry’s Bay Dairy Bar still is today. Mask purchased the lot for $175 and built a plant to pasteurize milk from his cows on Mask Island. The raw milk was delivered by family members to the plant to be processed, where it was then delivered to houses and stores in the community by horse and cart. The Masks sold the dairy in 1945 but continued to supply milk to the new owners.

1939 saw the continued growth of infrastructure in Barry’s Bay: the new post office opened this year in its current location. A grant of $15,000 was provided for the build. Barry’s Bay has had post offices since 1877, but they had always run out of private homes or businesses.

The following year, the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary burns down. The church, located at Siberia and Kartuzy roads, was built in 1896 to serve families living down Siberia Road. Previously, they had walked or drove with horses to Brudenell or Wilno to attend church services. The Church served parishioners until just 1914 and was empty when it burned down in 1940. The graveyard and stone foundation still exists today.

John Hudson is back as Reeve in Radcliffe in 1941, serving the final of his three terms from 1941-1943.

In 1943, Patrick Fitzgerald becomes Reeve of Radcliffe. Pat Fitzgerald had previously owned a few businesses in town, including a gas station and a general store.