Mark Woermke
From Skeads Road to Sunset Blvd.
The Story of a Bark Lake Pioneer Family
Before the railway, and before the village of Barry’s Bay, the centre of activity on the western end of Opeongo Road was the Bark Lake Settlement. This frontier hamlet developed around the lumber depot and camp on nearby Bark Lake. Farmers, blacksmiths and harness makers settled there to supply the lumber operation with food, tools and tack. Hotelkeepers arrived too, and their stopping places provided beds, hot meals, stable and feed and, sometimes, liquor for the lumber jacks, settlers, travelling salesmen, surveyors and itinerant preachers who were travelling the Opeongo.
One of these hotel keepers was a Protestant Irishman by the name of Thomas Culbertson. Born in Northern Ireland, he came to Canada as a child, and in adulthood he owned hotels at Douglas, Bark Lake and Coe Hill. In his retirement, he migrated west with his daughter to Springwater, Saskatchewan. Culbertson sold his stopping place to an Irish Catholic who eventually moved the business to Barry’s Bay to profit from the arrival of the railway.
Join Mark Woermke on July 12 at 2:00 p.m. at the Railway Station in Barry’s Bay to learn more about the Bark Lake Settlement; the Culbertson family and their links to other pioneer families of the Madawaska Valley; and how these connect to Hollywood.
