Pagwa, ON

May 2002

You can drive into Pagwa in any type of vehicle, but a truck or van is best because they are built heavier and usually have heavier tires and suspensions. I used an Astro van with all-wheel drive. Much of the old roadbed from the Pitopiko Road is used for forest access and it has been widened and groomed for trucks. The old roadbed where it is still roadbed can have a lot of debris buried in the ballast and old spikes can play havoc with tires. It's good to go with a full tank of gasoline, too.

From Pitopiko Road to Pagwa River is about 40 kilometres, or 25 miles. And the Pitopiko Road is, I believe, about 50 kilometres west of Hearst. It takes ma about four hours to get to Pagwa River from Timmins (I live in Porcupine, which is a suburb of Timmins). I always leave about five or six in the morning so I reach Pagwa in good light. But the distance is far enough that weather can be quite different in Pagwa than when I leave.

The village of Pagwa River remains as summer homes, about 10 or so. The old Anglican church has been turned into a sort of community hall. The railway station of Pagwa was actually close to the radar base, about two miles west of the river. Nothing remains of the railway section - station, section house, bunk house and tool shed are long gone. All the old fur trade infrastructure is gone, too, both Revillon Freres who were first at Pagwa River and subsequently, the Hudson's Bay Company, which in 1936 acquired Revillon Freres.

I met a man who grew up at Pagwa River, Walter Wesley, of Calstock, and he held a lot of history in his head about Pagwa. Unfortunately, he died on 12 January 2002, just a short time after retiring from the Nishnabe-Aski Police Service. He was even a CNR employee for some years, and worked at Pagwa, Wilgar and Teltaka.

I have plans to go back to the Pagwa area this summer. I hope to make some arrangements to hit the railbed for a couple of days in June. I'll stay in touch and let you know how the route has held up. Beaver dam building has already cut the old railway route in a couple of places east of Pitopiko River so at this point, I don't know just what's open.

My wife, Pat, and I drove into Pagwa on Thursday, 13 June 2002. The Weather Network had promised sunny weather for this part of Northeastern Ontario for the day, and sunny it was. It has been a cool, wet spring for most of May and June.

We had a surprise. A forestry access road is being built in front of the old station and "guess what?" – the station is being ripped up (or dug up) to provide gravel for the road. Apparently a lot of gravel fill was hauled in to build the station and now this gravel is being put to other uses. Fortunately, the work seems just to have started so most of the remains of the station as I remember them were there. It was sad to note that the foundation for one of the radomes has already been dug up.

I followed the instructions you provided in your request and shot film all the way in, with some distances measured. There should be about 140 photos to send you for the web site, about half of which depict the remains of what once was the radar station. You will also notice a few shots of a backhoe digging up the memories, and a Volvo truck with really big tires that was used for hauling everything away. The forest access road has actually cut the old CNR-NTR right-of-way at the station. There is a three-foot-high wall of gravel across the roadbed at the present time so we couldn't drive any further. That meant no trip to Nakina.

It also appears the roadbed has reverted to the Crown because we noticed some new signs this year posted at the Pagwa River bridge by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources stating that the bridge and the right-of-way are not maintained and must be used at our own risk.

After touring the site, my wife came up with a question which only those who served at Pagwa can answer. What were all the buildings that used to occupy the foundations used for? I pointed out where the gatehouse was, and that was about it. I showed her an aerial photo from your web site but we found more foundations than existed for buildings in the photo. Specifically, there was one long building just in from the gatehouse which was kind of on a diagonal to all the other buildings. It contained bathrooms and showers because the tiles are still in evidence. It also had a concrete basement while all the other buildings seem to have been built on concrete slabs (except for the radomes, which had concrete footings). If you have a moment, perhaps you could send me a diagram of what buildings were where.

On the way home, we stopped at Kendra's Restaurant at Calstock, just west of Hearst, for coffee and cheese cake. There we learned, talking to proprietor Irene Wesley, that it was she and her husband Walter who had bought the buildings when the station closed. They couldn't buy the land. They stripped the buildings of furnishings and appliances to sell off, but they had hopes of using one or two of the structures for their tourist outfitting business. That didn't work out because they couldn't get the land. The remains at the station are what's left of their failed attempt to develop a lodge at the site.

The Wesley's lived at Pagwa River as children. Irene said they courted on the long railway bridge. In summer it was a cool place to get away from the flies. One of the old school buildings at Pagwa River now is the Wesley cottage. It used to have electrical power from a diesel generator but that utility is long gone, although some poles and wires, and even a sentinel lighting fixture, remain. Actually, they remain, but Walter doesn't. He died from a heart attack on January 12 of this year.

Richard Cameron

Pinetree Line web site comment. – It should be noted that Richard Cameron is the first person to communicate with us that has been able to provide an update – both detail and photos – of what remains at Pagwa. With the remains of the old radar station presently being "razed to the ground", it is safe to say that his photos may well be the last that we will receive for Pagwa.

Please feel free to check the photos that were taken during his June 2002 visit. If there is anything that you can identify or relate to the past, please advise us via email message, and collectively, we may be able to add a few more pieces to this outstanding "jigsaw puzzle".