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August 17, 2001
More about Brent’s early days on the CNR
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| An open control dam on the Petawawa River near Brent.(Flo Bucknell
photo) |
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The very early days of Brent on the CNR "Algonquin Route" were looked
at last week. The 1920s and up to the Depression years were active with
the Brent Lumber Company and the Gilles Lumber Company pushing the population
up to close to 300. There were also as many as 60 railway staff taking
room and board during their turnaround time at this division point. A town
restaurant was established and run by Alphonse Normand for several years,
followed by George Mateo. George provided a full -course steak dinner for
fifty cents. Mr. Normand had a punch card for twenty-one meals for seven
dollars. He worked on the railway, and after retirement ran the fire tower
for several years.
In a recent conversation with Frances Normand (Shaw), one of Alphonse's
seven daughters, she reminisced about the first school at Brent-a CNR passenger
coach adapted as a classroom in 1928. It lasted until 1966, when the usual
twenty-five to thirty-five students had dropped to four. Frances' daughter
Claudia, and Claudia's husband Ron, have done considerable research on
Brent and have collected numerous photographs, some of which are shown
here.
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The Brent school car, students, and teacher at Brent in
the 1920s. (Claudia (Normand) Newman photo)
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Almost everyone from Brent that I have talked to has very positive memories
of Brent, but there were some tragedies of note. The Brent Lumber Company
is on record for some serious logging deaths. Nine workers going to camp
in a pointer boat failed to notice the sluce gate open on one of the dams
on the Petawawa River, and were swept to their deaths. They are remembered
in a cemetery at Brent where they were buried with a cross and a logging
chain enclosure. (The old Gilles Alligator sat on the shore near the cemetery
for years, until it was taken to the Algonquin Park Logger's Museum near
Whitney, where it was refurbished.)
Sandy Geegan, who later ran the first Brent store, was a camp cook when
six of his friends were drowned in an upset pointer and buried in the mill
yard. (Jerry McGaughey later ran the Brent store for years. It is now a
satellite of the Algonquin Outfitters run by Jake Pigeon, and where a wide
variety of supplies are available.) Jim MacPherson, who lives in Castle
Arms II in North Bay, recently told me the story of his father, a river
drive foreman who was killed during a dynamite blast used to break up a
log jam on the Petawawa River in 1930.
Many families (the Balls, Waldriffs, Bucknells, Lavignes, Rotars, Petroffs,
Depenciers, etc.) spent decades at Brent, and many still have cottages
there today among the twenty or so that still remain on leased land. They
have positive memories of the school, the dances, fishing, swimming, hunting
and berry picking, and many who left when the train and the road (in winter)
were shut down would have continued to live there to this day.
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Four of the seven Normand daughters-Madeleine, Eva, Matilda
and Margaret-in front of their father's restaurant at Brent in the 1920s.
All married, had children, and are now deceased.
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Adam Pitz, one of the real Brent characters whose family came from Romania
and worked on the railway, died in Brent in 1996 after sixty-six years
there. The eccentric bachelor lived in primitive conditions, drinking a
lot and playing his fiddle. On one occasion he fiddled himself off the
porch at a party and broke his leg. When he got to the hospital in Mattawa
the nurses-besides being highly entertained by him-discovered that he hadn't
washed in years and that his pockets were full of wads of money.
Park Rangers (Hughes, Stringer, Grant, Robinson, etc.) were an important
part of Brent life. Their office/home was just east of Brent and remains
today as a rental unit for park visitors. My son and I used it yesterday
and the day before for a photo exhibit, talk, and book signing for our
new book on Brent My Childhood in the Bush.
In the late 1970s a modern bunkhouse remained with two CNR men (Len
and Lawrence Sawchuck) the only CNR staff and four women who came in by
snowmobile to assist. As mentioned above, several families hung on when
the mail, express and passenger service was cancelled, and later when the
road was closed in winter. Postmaster Mike Mandryk and others got the local
MP to get the mail service restored temporarily, and train crews brought
in food for the people isolated there during the winter. The rails were
pulled up in 1996, the year Adam Pitz died and the year the leases were
to run out on the cottage sites (later extended to 2017).
In terms of the future of Brent, the Algonquin Park Master Plan (1999)
has designated a fourteen and nine hectare Developmental Zone on either
side of the Brent town site. There is also a designated Historical Zone
(the cemetery) and a Nature Reserve Zone on the point. There is also a
possibility that the abandoned rail line could be acquired by the park
and developed as a trail, if ecological concerns can be resolved. As an
Access Point, Brent can be assured of a future for a long time to come.
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