Britt, Ontario
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
province of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, located in the unincorporated township
Township (Canada)
The term township generally means the district or area associated with a town. However in some systems no town needs to be involved. The specific use of the term to describe political subdivisions has varied by country, usually to describe a local rural or semi-rural government within the county...
of Wallbridge in the Parry Sound District
Parry Sound District, Ontario
Parry Sound District is a census division of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its seat is Parry Sound. Its boundaries are Muskoka to the south, the Sudbury District, the French River and Lake Nipissing in the north, Nipissing District, Ontario and North Bay in the north and east and parts of...
.
The community is located on the north shore of the Magnetawan River
Magnetawan River
The Magnetawan River is a river in Parry Sound District, Ontario, Canada, which flows 175 km from Magnetawan Lake inside Algonquin Provincial Park to empty into Georgian Bay at the community of Britt on Byng Inlet....
at Byng Inlet
Byng Inlet (Ontario)
Byng Inlet is a body of water on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, between Parry Sound and the mouth of the French River. It is a widening of the Magnetawan River, near its mouth...
, approximately 5 kilometres west of Highway 69
Ontario Highway 69
King's Highway 69, commonly referred to as Highway 69, is a major north–south highway in the central area of the Canadian province of Ontario, linking Highway 400 north of Parry Sound with Sudbury...
, at the end of Highway 526.
Like its neighbouring community of Byng Inlet
Byng Inlet, Ontario
Byng Inlet is a ghost town in Parry Sound District, Ontario. For a period in the nineteenth century it was home to one of largest sawmill operations in Canada. The name of the town came from that of the English Admiral John Byng...
on the south shore, Britt was originally a sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
village, known as Byng Inlet North when the Burton Mill located there in 1880. As the lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
industry in this area had reached its peak, prior to the building of the CPR
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
between 1903 and 1908, the community on the north shore was established as a port for receiving coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, required for the railway's steam locomotives. It was after this, that Byng Inlet North was renamed Britt, for the CPR Superintendent of Fuels.
The community is not an incorporated municipality, but part of Unorganized Centre Part Parry Sound
Parry Sound, Unorganized, Centre Part, Ontario
Small southern exclave...
and is administered by a local services board.