“The civilized world is more or less rapidly coming to a hearty belief in public parks, and not only in the smaller municipal parks, but great reservations of a more national character, preserving large sections of natural forest growth — especially around the headwaters of streams — of hill and dale, of river, lake, and shore, where all the forces of mankind’s great nurse may have unlimited play, where water sources can be protected and where the native inhabitants of the woods and streams can breed and run in seclusion, unstartled by the crack of the rifle, safe from the contrivances of the trapper.”— editorial marking the establishment of Algonquin Park, Boston Evening Transcript, May 12, 1893
The creation of Algonquin Provincial Park (or, as it was originally known, Algonquin National Park of Ontario) in May 1893 was the culmination of many efforts to conserve natural resources and preserve valuable waterways. Businessmen, civil servants, and sportsmen came together to realize a vision of sustainable forest management and other environmental practices that would benefit future generations.
By the 1880s, the area that would become Algonquin was feeling the effects of poorly managed logging practices from the previous 50 years, leading lumber barons to worry about the sustainability of their industry. Sportsmen were concerned about increasing pressure on wildlife stocks from excessive hunting and trapping. Naturalists lobbied to create a provincial wildlife reserve. Government officials were realizing that efforts to transform the southern Canadian Shield into farmland were failing, as the soil was unsuited for agriculture, and clearcutting was having a disastrous effect on waterways.
Alexander Kirkwood (left), chief clerk of the Land Sales Division of the Ontario Department of Crown Lands, and surveyor James Dickson. (A Pictorial History of Algonquin Provincial Park)
While forests and natural settings had once been seen as potentially dangerous to settlers across the province, by the late 19th century, Ontarians were beginning to embrace nature as a space that people — especially urban residents — could go for physical, psychological, and spiritual renewal. “It is time we understood that the cry ‘clear the forest; make the woodland into farms’ has no application to the great, stony, granitic, pine-covered belt which hems our more fertile region,” Robert Phipps, the provincial forestry clerk, wrote in 1886. “That is for forest, in forest for ever it should remain”
Among those changing their minds was Alexander Kirkwood, the chief clerk of the Land Sales Division of the Ontario Department of Crown Lands. Once a promoter of agricultural settlement in the Canadian Shield, by the 1880s he’d reversed course and begun arguing for the need to reserve land for uses other than farming. In 1885, Kirkwood wrote a letter to Crown Lands commissioner Timothy Pardee proposing that 10 townships in Nipissing District, which contained the headwaters of the Bonnechere, Madawaska, Muskoka, and Petawawa rivers, should be protected. The forests within this land would help maintain waters and provide space for sustainable logging. Kirkwood also proposed that hunting and trapping should be banned and that the land could be put to recreational use through the leasing of cottages and tents and the construction of a hotel. He suggested “Algonquin” as the park’s name to, in his words, honour “one of the greatest Indian nations that has inhabited the North American continent.”
“There is a gloomy grandeur in the natural forest,” Kirkwood wrote. “The noble pines and stately oaks bespeak the growth of centuries. The winds sound solemnly among their branches, and the rooks caw from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. It is in wandering through such scenes that the mind drinks deep but quiet draughts of inspiration and becomes intensely sensible of the beauty and majesty of nature. It is here that the imagination of the poet kindles into reverie and rapture, and revels in almost incommunicable luxury of thought.”
Map showing the park when it was established in 1893. ( Reports of the Algonquin National Park of Ontario for the Year 1893)
Pardee cautiously approved Kirkwood’s proposal but required time to investigate any political implications. In the meantime, Kirkwood published his letter in pamphlet form. It included a verse about the duties of workers in the future park:
You shall true liegeman be
Unto the King's Majesty:
Unto the beasts of the forest you shall no hurt do,
Nor to anything that doth belong thereunto:
The offences of others you shall not conceal,
But to the utmost of your power you shall them reveal
Unto the officers of the forest,
Or to them who may see them redrest:
All these things you shall see done,
So help you God, at his holy doom.
The need for provincial parks had already been recognized; during this period, the body that would become the Niagara Parks Commission was established and, federally, the first Canadian national park had been established at Banff in 1885.
Pardee sent surveyor James Dickson to report on the area, especially those townships that hadn’t been surveyed. When he reported his findings in January 1888, Dickson said he impressed by the park’s potential: “The preservation from destruction of moose, deer, and beaver would … alone warrant the government in making this a reservation.”
Algonquin Park: Yours to Explore
Kirkwood prepared draft legislation for Pardee, but, when future premier Arthur Sturgis Hardy replaced an ailing Pardee in early 1889, the park was not considered a urgent matter. But pressure continued to mount, and, by 1892, Hardy had told the legislature that the government intended to create a park. A royal commission including Dickson, Kirkwood, and Phipps was established that year; its report argued that watershed management and preserving the water supply were the most important reasons for having a park, followed by game preservation (including breeding to stock other areas of the province for hunting), recreational use, and forest-management research. They also expanded the park’s size, incorporating parts of 18 townships.
An Act to Establish the Algonquin National Park of Ontario moved swiftly through the legislature in May 1893. It created “a public park, and forest reservation, fish and game preserve, health resort, and pleasure ground for the benefit, advantage, and enjoyment of the people of the Province.” Land title remained with the province, settlement was prohibited, hunting and trapping were banned, fishing was limited to road and line under permit, short-term leases were allowed for hotels and cottages, and only mature pine trees could be cut for timber. The bill faced little opposition; the only major complaint came from Kent West MLA James Clancy, who wanted to ban all logging, as “it would be a great pity if the forests were not maintained in their natural state in the park.” The bill was approved on May 27, 1893. “No scheme ever conceived by any government in any part of the Dominion has met with such general approval,” Dickson observed. “All shades of politicians seemed to unite for once in its favour”
Canadian and American newspapers praised the establishment of the park. “A generation hence,” the Globe observed, “the people of Ontario will appreciate more highly than they do now the wisdom and foresight which secured to them this vast playground.” The Boston Evening Transcript called it “a noble park, worthy to rank for size and natural advantages with the best parks of its size today” that could provide a good model for other jurisdictions to follow.
Not among the considerations of anyone developing the park was the local Indigenous population. Shortly after the park was created, Hardy admitted that, although he believed that they, like other Ontarians, should be denied hunting and trapping rights, “great care and tact will be required to handle these people so as not to embitter them or leave them feeling they have a substantial grievance.”
The Algonquins and Algonquin: Chief Kirby Whiteduck at TEDxAlgonquinPark
The rest of 1893 was spent establishing a human presence in the new park. Dickson and Chief Ranger Peter Thomson set out in late July to build ranger lodges and a park headquarters on Canoe Lake. The first building was a 6.4 metre by 8.5 metre log shanty with accommodation for six people and, according to an official report, an iron stove that “affords rather inadequate facilities for cooking and other general purposes.” One problem they faced was that, due to miscommunication, a timber company built a woodcutting shanty only 12 feet away from the headquarters.
A year later, Rondeau was established as Ontario’s second provincial park. After that, the pace of growth of the park system slowed; by 1954, there were only eight. The creation of Algonquin and Rondeau, combined with changes to fish and game laws, lessened worries about wildlife stocks. The Forest Reserves Act, passed in 1898, set aside large tracts of protected land, especially as Ontario expanded northward. Finally, there was a general lack of interest from Ontarians in creating new parks; members of the urban working class, with limited free time, were more interested in having local recreational spaces such as park, playgrounds, and athletic fields.
In 1893, Garden and Forest magazine confidently predicted how the park would be viewed by Ontarians of the future: “A hundred years hence it will be cherished as one of the most precious possessions of the province.”
Sources: Reports of the Algonquin National Park of Ontario for the Year 1893 (Toronto: Warwick Bros & Rutter, 1894); Protected Places: A History of Ontario’s Provincial Parks System by Gerald Killan (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993); Algonkin Forest and Park, Ontario, by Alexander Kirkwood (Toronto: Warwick & Sons, 1886); A Pictorial History of Algonquin Provincial Park by Ron Tozer and Dan Strickland (Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, 1980); the July 24, 1893, edition of the Boston Evening Transcript; the July 19, 1893 edition of Garden and Forest; and the May 12, 1893 edition of the Globe.