It could become a centre of attention, and at one time, no one really knew where it was or cared.
There’s a new tourism attraction in northcentral Ontario, and its story is somewhere between serendipity and what will become a legend.
There’s a back roads connection to it, and you may want the braggin’ rights as well? I did.
On Thursday, December 20, 2018, Back Roads Bill and Brian Emblin reached the geographic centre of Ontario. While that point was the end of our journey that day, it became the beginning of a larger journey for the town of Hornepayne, Ontario.
In my notes: “It was overcast and near zero degrees Celsius, the ground was sloppy as we snowshoed to find the centroid among the thick black spruce about 8 km NNE of Hornepayne. It wasn’t easy.”
That day of accomplishment on the back roads initiated and connected a good many dots.
Exploringthe true heart of Ontario
We live in this vast and magnificent province, and when I quiz people about where they think the geographic centre is, there is a spatial pause. One of the reasons is because of that AI suggests. “As a large, roughly fish-shaped province with its tail in the south (where most of the population lives) and its head in the north.” That, and you have to think about the lines of longitude and latitude. Although I never thought it looked like a fish.
Its unique irregular form is defined by its boundaries with Hudson Bay and James Bay in the north and the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River in the south. The overall shape is elongated, spanning a significant distance both east-to-west and north-to-south.
Some more AI: “Ontario is a massive province, covering over 1 million square kilometres (415,000 square miles), making it the second-largest province in Canada and larger than France and Spain combined. It's also roughly the size of Egypt and is considerably larger than Texas.”
A little more to know. It is Canada's most populous province, with 38.3 per cent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec). Ontario is Canada's fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast, and to the south by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
This is an interesting website where various countries of the world are superimposed with the perimeter of Ontario – our fish shape.
So, back to the question, people most often get too close to the Ontario/Quebec border in northern Ontario – they forget the eastern extremity goes way over to Montreal.
I reached all four corners of the province during COVID and wrote about the journeys in previous Village Media. It was a monumental achievement in short order – more to boast about.
The centre of Ontario is near Hornepayne, and where’s that?
A small town powered by trains, timber, and tenacity
In late August, we profiled Gogama in northeastern Ontario for other reasons, but there are so many small towns scattered across the north that evolve and continue to survive.
Hornepayne is a community located in the Algoma District on the main CN railway line – it remains an important divisional hub for switching east-west mainline freight trains. Some of the railway employees are transient in nature and are not residents.
The community is approximately halfway between Hearst (west of) on Highway 11 North and White River on Highway 17 to the south on secondary Highway #631. Remember we have two Trans Canada Highways in the north. Completed in 1958, Highway #631 is 170.0 km/105.6 miles.
Hornepayne Lumber, the community's second largest employer, employs approximately 100 people. These workers mostly live in the community.
The mill began in 1953 as the Olav Haavaldsrud Timber Company. It was founded by Olav and Elna Haavldsrud. The couple immigrated to Canada from Kongsberg, Norway. The company quickly grew to include the sawmill so it could use larger logs from the Nagagami Forest and closed in 2015.
In the summer of 2016, the mill was purchased by private investors including former Tembec President Frank Dottori. The sawmill's owners now include WRC Timber Inc., the Missanabie Cree, the Chapleau Cree, and the Netamisakomik Anishinabek (Pic Mobert) First Nations.
From coal chutes to community pride
Recently, I returned to see what had transpired in the geographic centre of Ontario. I again familiarized myself with Hornepayne.
There are two wig-wag crossings to get into the town proper from Highway 631. Just about every CN truck you see has an adaptable railway undercarriage to ride the rails. These are called hi-rail trucks or road-rail vehicles. These vehicles are equipped with retractable railway wheels that can be lowered to engage the rails and allow for rail travel or raised for normal road driving.
I went out to the Hornepayne Lumber sawmill and the cogeneration powerplant while in Hornepayne. Both have the smell of freshly cut lumber, sawdust and chips. I took a couple of photos and skedaddled. I probably was where I should not have been.
About 8 km out of town is the landfill site. I veered in to see if there were any black bears. (My parents used to do that, I remember, take us there, it was like a northern Ontario zoo.) and then returned to town, where I stayed at the new motel Studio 6. It's nice.
There’s a #636 Hornepayne Masonic Lodge on the corner of Front St. and Government Lake Rd. No one has reviewed their Facebook page. The CN bunkhouses are across the street with rail tracks less than 100m away to the west. You can always hear a diesel locomotive idling, waiting for the crew to change.
McKinnon’s Fresh Mart is right around the corner to the east; they bought it five years back. So is the town office and the attached library, and Home Hardware is across the street. The LCBO is located a block away at Cindy’s This and That. This summer, the Third Ave. sewer/water and paving project is well underway.
You can see the Holy Name of Jesus Parish Catholic church up on the hill. I like their Facebook message. “We are a small but lively bilingual parish located in the remote town of Hornepayne, Ontario. Welcome!”
The Anglican church is over on First St., and Calvary Gospel Church is out on the highway.
What you can’t see within the large CN shops building is a roundhouse. I can imagine it includes a circular or semicircular floor plan that allows for the use of a turntable, a rotating platform that once directed locomotives and engines into various specialized maintenance stalls. These are unique, and I asked for a tour upon my next return. The expansive building is used for storage.
I discovered some of the history from locally published books that the mayor gave me as a departing gift. Hornepayne was established by the Canadian Northern Railway in 1915 and originally named Fitzbach (Fitzback). It was renamed in 1920 in honour of Robert Montgomery Horne-Payne, an influential British financier. Horne-Payne was instrumental in the development of the Canadian Northern Railway (later CN). The station, built in 1921, was demolished in October 2020. A magnificent coal chute/tower, built in 1915, still stands beside the shops. This was the primary structure for refuelling, enabling the transfer of coal to the locomotives' tenders.
I think the roundhouse and the coal chute are heritage sites on their own merit and are another Hornepayne treasure. If you Google “roundhouse rehabilitation projects in Canada,” you will see what other communities have done with similar heritage sites. Railway coal chutes are indeed rare finds. I took photos of both. I think I was where I was supposed to be, legally speaking.
J&R Auto Service has been closed for a while, but there’s the Esso station (Hornpayne Service Centre) out on the highway. At the time of writing a Facebook post advertising a job. You can buy minnows and worms there as well.
The town has an arena, curling rink, fitness centre and one new motel, and I stayed there one night, as mentioned above, I didn’t hear the trains pass by.
There’s a parkette with a skateboard park with a gazebo. The new accommodation is at the south end of town by the ballfield it has a centre of Ontario sign with geographic coordinates attached to the fence. The three bears statue mascot is there as well. These bears are important as they are part of the new rebranding for the community: ‘Adventure Starts at the Centre.’
There’s a hospital with one permanent doctor visiting locums. There’s a full roster of six OPP officers at the detachment and there are three district school boards offering educational services from junior kindergarten to Grade 12 and adults.
The only restaurant is Eats and Treats, which has a front deck kind of patio, and its hours are from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nancy is now the owner, but there have been three owners in five years.
There was a taxi service.
I like towns like this.
The guy and the new trail
Odette Provencher is the General Manager of the new motel – Studio 6, an extended-stay location to house transient railway workers and other contractors. Its first anniversary is this November. The community was without tourism accommodation for about fifteen years before the Studio 6 opened.
I said it was nice, even more so, as they are so friendly. In the lobby are some wildlife sketches from North Bay artist John Marcil, whom I know. I called him from the lobby. Studio 6 wants more of his sketches. His wife, Laurie, is the Executive Director of the Northern Ontario Tourism Outfitters Association. She answered the phone and passed on the message to John.
Back to Odette. She has community spirit in mind, front and centre, and wants to put Hornepayne back on the map.
“For our first winter, I organized a snowmobile poker run to bring people in town and stay at the motel. I contacted Denis Andre, president of the snowmobile club, and we partnered up to create this event and do a fundraiser for the new ball field at the same time. It was a huge success.”
Now read this carefully. The evolution of the new trail to the centre of Ontario will become a legend. And the guy will ever be known only to locals.
Forestry operations are governed by a Forest Management Plan under the Crown Land Sustainability Act.
Odette recalls talking to a guy who works (coordinating harvesting operations) for a forestry company.
"I told him I would like to create a quad run in September for another fundraiser and include the Centre of Ontario.
“During a forestry slowdown, the guy took the opportunity to keep the bush workers occupied during this and opened a road to the Centre of Ontario."
Everyone knows the guy in Hornepayne anyway. It was a job well done.
“We can now access the centre a little more easily. I organized a quad scavenger-bingo hunt to promote the Centre of Ontario, something we should be proud of.”
So now there is about an 800 m road into the Centre of Ontario. It follows our original snowshoe trek of 2018 to the blue-ribboned black spruce trees. There’s a cul-de-sac around the tear-shaped centre.
At the same time, Odette reached out to the Hornepayne lumber mill for a lumber donation to build a short boardwalk from the new road to the very centre of the province. A welcome addition and walking asset for all visitors.
“As I was running out of time to send the letter to the mill, one of the volunteers reached out and got us some lumber, and along with some volunteers from the snowmobile club, took a morning to build the platform and made a framework for flags. I ordered an Ontario flag, and added a small Canadian flag and a Hornepayne flag.”
They are on it, big time.
She also reached out to the town's local father and son team, Gaudreau's Handcrafted Wonders, to build a protective box for the guest book she ordered.
There are plans to have some good-sized bear sculptures as directional markers and a large statue at the Centre of Ontario for selfie souvenir photo opportunities.
Odette brims with pride.
“First thing I told my boss was from the Field of Dreams movie (1989 sports fantasy with Kevin Costner), 'Build it, they will come', then I said 'let’s put Hornepayne on the map!'"
It was her first attempt at organizing a snowmobile poker run, which raised $1,500, and the quad run raised more than $3,000, all for local charities.
“Go big or go home!” she said.
“Now, none of that would've happened without Back Roads Bill and Brian, who marked the Centre of Ontario,” Odette added.
Of the lumber harvested from the Centre of Ontario, Odette said, “I would love for it to get milled and we could build a shelter at the entrance in case of an emergency. I would also like to encourage people to bring a rock, painted and protected from the weather, with either their name or where they are from. We could display them around the Centre!”
If Odette has her way, there will be several bear sculptures en route.
Denis Andre is the President Hornepayne Snowbears and confirmed all of the above.
He said, “This has been a real community effort.”
“All this started with a snowmobile poker rally where someone mentioned doing an ATV rally in the summer, and said it would be nice to include the Centre of Ontario as a stop. At the time, most of us didn't even know where it was, other than a pin on a map.
“The boardwalk was created after a group of volunteers, riding the proposed ATV route, went to the Centre of Ontario and saw how wet and difficult it was to access on foot.
"Ray Lavigne went as a representative of the Hornepayne Snowbears snowmobile club, since a lot of the rally was on the OFSC Snowmobile trails. He works at Hornepayne Lumber and asked for a donation of lumber, and they did. Ray then organized a group of volunteers from the community and the snowmobile club to go and build the boardwalk for the rally to make it easier to access and take pictures.”
Presto, just like that, it is done. We talk about community spirit; it is here, alright, by example.
He said, “The bird house was donated by a local business, Goudreau's Handcrafted Wonders, to keep the guest book dry. I also went by foot, right after the road was built, and the first book and box were wet and difficult to sign.”
The original poster and logbook are now there.
He said, “Since I became president of the snowmobile club, I have been trying to improve tourism to Hornepayne with snowmobiling. After COVID and then a year of no snow in 2023, snowmobiling was down.
"When the hotel, Studio 6, opened, I saw a way to help change this. Working with other like-minded people, like Odette Provencher, we started to promote the new motel and saw the promotion of the Geographical Centre of Ontario as a way to help the community grow.
"At the same time, the town council was also going through the process of rebranding. The new slogan is 'Adventure Begins at the Centre'. This is a grassroots movement to help grow a wonderful community. We have had amazing support.
“The ATV Rally also showed that there is a need to turn this into a multi-sport point of interest. My next task is to create a safe route to the Centre via the OFSC trails.”
All of these people should be saluted. It took some time, though.
Back Roads Bill and beginning the adventure at the centre
I did a presentation to Mayor Cheryl Fort and the council and brought Her Worship a commemorative t-shirt. Email records from Deputy Clerk Shannon Milley say I presented on March 20, 2019, starting at 6 p.m. It was on their agenda as an item on Wednesday, January 23, 2019. The purpose was to get them excited about something that 'could be', as the theme of my presentation.
There was nowhere to stay at the time, so I drove up and back from North Bay that day. It was a long one, but I could sense the potential.
Here is a CBC article about it from 2019. Since that time, Brian Emblin and I guided a snowshoe contingent of interested community members to retrace our steps on February 16, 2020. The date and attendees are in the original guestbook.
Mayor Fort has sat on council for ten years and was elected Mayor in 2018, the second Indigenous Mayor to be elected in Ontario. She is also a CN locomotive engineer.
We went out to the Centre of Ontario on August 25 with Councillor Belinda Kistemaker; it was her grandfather who started the first mill, and she works there. Mayor Fort had not been in office for too long when the Back Roads freight train came to their council meeting.
“Hornepayne is growing,” was her first recent comment. She was instrumental in creating the Hornepayne Housing Corporation – an innovative strategy to meet the challenge of needed housing in a remote community, attracting investors and refurbishing existing apartments.
She has been a big supporter of the Centre of Ontario project. I went out to the Centre of Ontario with her on August 25.
“Yes, it’s amazing how everyone is working together to see our challenges as opportunities! Thank you for coming to Hornepayne. I was so happy to go out to the Centre and see it,” she said, referring to the new trail-road, and then three days later, the boardwalk and guest book bird house that materialized through the planning of the community ATV ride.
She explained the new branding.
"Adventure Begins at the Centre - Hornepayne is proud of its bold new brand that reflects our rich history, adventurous spirit, and vision for the future. Our new identity brings together the voices of residents, the strength of our landscape, and our promise to build a welcoming and opportunity-rich community for all.”
She said, “The tagline frames Hornepayne as the starting point for your next great adventure. It is an inspiring call to visitors, residents, and investors to decide how they want to plot their own course in the geographical centre of Ontario.”
There’s more to be developed within the community’s strategic plan. You can see several new signs around town with the tagline - at the ball field beside Studio 6 and at the parkette, and on the brow of the hill before ascending to the downtown area.
There will be a Hornepayne contingent, October 24-26, at the Toronto Snowmobile ATV & Powersports Show, promoting all we have to offer at the Centre of Ontario.
I have urged them to have some Centre of Ontario giveaways.
From bushwhacking to landmark
It was not just me who was first there at the Centre of Ontario. Emblin and Steer – Steer and Emblin. Are we Magellan and Drake, or Lewis and Clark? On Thursday, December 20, 2018, with my intrepid partner, Brian Enblin, the now-retired mechanical engineer from Timmins, we reached the summit of sorts.
We had a stake, an orange cone, and a laminated poster – depicting the centre and the accomplishment (which has remained with the guest book in the waterproof ammo box). We assured ourselves that the goal was attainable. It was a bush crashing, with some expletives, “over there,” a wet, damp type of experience, in not ideal weather conditions. I put the orange cone on my head as a celebratory gesture.
There’s a new Back Roads Bill story coming up with Canadian adventurer, Adam Shoalts. We agreed that this is nasty ground to move through.
But we made it. The trek was the inspiration to get to all four surveyed corners of the province, which we did, and you can read about in the northern Ontario Village Media sites. This link has all the stories of our journey efforts.
Brian Emblin reflects on the accomplishment.
“On our first visit, it was neat to be the first there and the ones to drive in the inaugural post, into what was very damp and spongy ground.
“My vision for what could be an attraction was a narrow, intimate hiking trail, but I think what the community is doing - to attract hikers, snowshoers and enable ATVs, snowmobilers, etc. to access the centre - is awesome.
“It’s a multi-use trail. It surpasses what I had envisioned. The logbook in its wooden enclosure revealed that many groups had been in. I like how the town has come together to realize this vision and to take additional steps.”
It has indeed been a chain reaction of events. Many people now know where the Centre of Ontario is, and many more care.
So now Hornepayne is officially the Centre of Ontario! Who knew?
Like me, you’ll want to say you have done this, and with good reason - to see the enormous black bear at the Centre of Ontario when it is installed. I am sure Odette, Denis and others, like Mayor Fort, will make this happen. For now, upon your visit, take a small rock and leave it at the cairn that has been started. Sign the guest book.
Here’s the map link. It’s easy now, when compared to the first expedition. Travel north of Hornepayne on Highway 631 for 6 km, to Norm’s Road on the right or east, veering SE, 4 km. There will be signs. Park and walk less than 1 km.
Now you have to consider getting to some or all of the four corners of this vast and magnificent land, on the back roads.