BASIN DEPOT

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

COMMENTS: REMAINS: Now only two buildings survive from those days, a log cabin, which has stood since 1892, and a warehouse and storage area. Behind the warehouse lie the graves of victims of the 1892 diphtheria outbreak.

Although few have survived Ontario’s policy of demolition, Algonquin Park’s oldest structures are those at Basin Depot. During its busy lumbering days the Ottawa Valley contained many small communities called “depots.” These were villages built to house loggers and to provide a central point at which to assemble logs. Basin Depot was one of the largest and still provides some of the area’s more interesting vestiges of its logging heritage. By 1890 Basin Depot contained ten buildings including a blacksmith shop, a post office and the Basin House with a bar and accommodation for the loggers. When logging finally finished in 1960, Basin Depot contained 18 buildings and nearly 100 workers.

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