MOWAT

NAME: MOWAT COUNTY: ONTARIO ROADS: 2WD GRID: CLIMATE: Snow in winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring summer or fall

COMMENTS: REMAINS: Many vestiges remain from the days when Mowat thrived as a mill village.

As a mill town, Mowat was a late starter. It began to attract residents in 1897 on the northwestern shore of Canoe Lake in western Algonquin Park. Mowat was a lumberman’s town that included all the usual stores and businesses of the early mill villages including a hospital for a town that grew to a population of more than 500, the largest town in the Park. When the school opened in 1898 it listed 30 pupils in attendance. Unexpectedly, the lumber industry entered a recession and the population dwindled to just over 200. By 1914 it was down to 150. The community continued to decline and in 1946 the school closed having only 6 pupils. Soon the trains stopped running and Mowat became a ghost town of its former self.

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