Humour

Smallest Villages

Note: This article is hosted here for archival purposes only. It does not necessarily represent the values of the Iron Warrior or Waterloo Engineering Society in the present day.

In this second installment of the small villages around Canada, we will be looking into Tiverton, Ontario. Tiverton is located in Southwestern Ontario in the county of Bruce and in the municipality of Kincardine. You can get there from Toronto by first driving west for three hours and if you have hit water, you have gone too far. Once you are on the shores of Lake Huron, adjust your latitudinal position until you hit Tiverton. There is also a bus you can catch from Kitchener that will take you all the way to Tiverton. This small town of 743 people is located on Highway 21 between the towns of Port Elgin and Kincardine. Tiverton is home to Ontario’s first commercial wind farm, “Huron Wind,” which has 5 Vesta V80-1.8MW wind turbines; the Enbridge Wind Farm Project that has been recently constructed between Tiverton and will have over 100 wind turbines; and an East Indian Restaurant. One of the biggest contributions to the local economic in Tiverton is the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, which hires engineering co-op students for 8 month terms.

The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is the largest nuclear facility in North America in terms of output. It is located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron and occupies 2300 ares of land. This is the largest nuclear generating station in the world by the total reactor count and the number of operational reactors. The nuclear generating station has been in commission since 1977 and is owned by the Ontario Power Generation. One of the features on site are the Bald Eagles. Bruce Power releases heated water back into Lake Huron, preventing the surrounding shore line from freezing over during the winter. This causes an inordinate amount of fish to gather, which in turns attracts droves of Bald Eagles to winter in the area. It is not uncommon to observe several dozen eagles in and around the general vicinity of the plant even in late February and early March.

Tiverton was settled in 1850 and waited until 1860 to become known as Tiverton, after the borough for which Lord Palmerston, the English Prime Minister, sat in Parliament. It is said that the founder of the village was a man by the name of Norman McInnis who also opened the first shop and post office in Tiverton. Tiverton was first given as the name of the post office that had opened at the same time and eventually became the name of the village.

In the next issue of The Iron Warrior, we will be expanding from Ontario to up North and exploring through text the community of Keno City, Yukon. A former mining town, now a small and quaint community of approximately 15 people, the settlement is home to the Keno Mining Museum with an extensive collection dedicated to the history of mining in the Yukon from the early 1900s until the present. Keno City is located at Mile 69.1 of the Silver Trail, Yukon Highway 11. The closest town is Elsa, Yukon, which is 13 kilometres away and owned by Alexco Resource Corp, who currently owns and operates various deposits in the Keno Hill area.

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