While we were at Kettle Lakes Provincial Park we drove into the city of Timmins for the day (population approximately 42,000). Timmons is located about 780 kms from where we live in Trenton. It is one of the richest mineral producing areas in the Western Hemisphere, mining gold, zinc, copper, nickel and silver. The Porcupine Gold Rush was quite famous and the Timmins area is one of the richest goldfields in the world.
We wanted to go to the Timmins Museum and do some other tourist kind of things. This Museum was small but had free admission and was quite well done. We enjoyed our time looking at the displays and they had one exhibit with some artifacts from the province of Quebec.
I do love a good museum 
A lot of interesting information about the area
We also stopped at Full Beard Brewery but we did not care too much for any of their beer. Shocking I know! The food was quite good, we tried their Flatbread and a Cuban Sandwich and some salads. I liked it there and the staff was super nice but the beer wasn’t quite doing it for us.
Inside Full Beard Brewery 
Me enjoying one or two or more samplers of beer
Compass Brewery was another stop and it was a small brewery in a strip mall so the outside wasn’t too appealing as there is a carwash right across from the patio but the inside is cute. We tried some Stouts and IPAs which were better than the last place but still just okay.
Compass Brewery 
Inside Compass Brewery
On our way back to the Park, we stopped at the Miners Memorial and it’s a pretty little park with a beautiful Memorial. There were 594 miners killed and this is a dedication to them and their families. As I mentioned earlier, Timmins was always a mining town and in the early 1900’s there was a Gold Rush. There is still mining here and in fact in 2021 they have been constructing a bunch of new mines and hundreds of jobs could be had. (the link just above is a newspaper article on this)
Miners’ Memorial 
Trum at the memorial 
Miner’s Park 
I thought this looked kind of neat
The town of Iroquois Falls (pop 8500) is 40 kms east of the Park. It’s not a very exciting town, sorry Iroquois Falls!, but they do have a Hydro Electric Dam, which means absolutely nothing. lol I don’t even really have anything to say about this small town. Sorry again Iroquois Falls ! We took a different route back to the Park and we made a turn towards Barber Bay. There was a Historical Site, Fredricks House that we stopped at. It was built in 1785 to prevent Canadian fur traders in the Abitibi region from intercepting the passage of furs to Moose Fort (Moose Factory) on James Bay. It ended up being a very violent spot.
We stopped and got a photo with this guy, I think he was at a Visitor Centre but I can’t really remember now. It’s amazing what you see along the highways!
So an interesting area, lots of history here. We have been up this way a few times and I’m sure we will be back but for now, the next Post is Ivanhoe Lake Provincial Park!
Trums Travels 