Ermatinger/Clergue Heritage Site

Early 19th-century life

Now part of downtown, next to a real estate office, this is the oldest stone house northwest of Toronto. It was built in 1814 as the home and trading post of Charles Ermatinger, an important independent fur trader, and his wife, Mananowe, daughter of an Ojibwa chief. They lived here until 1828, when they both moved to Montreal to conduct his father's merchant business. Ermatinger defied custom among traders, which called for turning his native wife over to the incoming trader upon departure.

Visitors are treated as if they have entered the home of a wealthy gentleman and his native wife. There's often food being prepared and something in the oven, and visitors can help stir - or open the book lying on a table. A costumed interpreter may be working in the garden. (The yard and orchard go back to the river.) Visitors are welcome to join in and weed or turn the trenched compost pile. The herbs and survival plants - tough flint corn, root crops, medicinal herbs, dye plants- grow in a "tangle garden," almost as if they were in the wild.

People who are fascinated with Colonial Michilimackinac will likely enjoy this, related to Mackinac fur trading but from the later, British era than the French fort on the mainland. The gift shop carries hand crafts, books, cookbooks, and souvenirs relating to the site.

The Clergue blockhouse layers the Canadian Sault's industrial era on this early site. The visionary American industrialist Francis Hector Clergue, a native of Maine, moved across the river upon building the giant hydropower plant in the American Sault. On the site of the St. Mary's Paper mill he found the stone ruins of an early 19th-century powder magazine of the North West Company. He decided to build his log living quarters on the powder magazine's foundation and live there at the paper mill, surrounded by his industrial empire.

When the paper mill expanded, his log blockhouse was moved to the Ermatinger site in 1996. In early 2001 Clergue's papers were discovered in an old warehouse. When studied, the ledgers, other business records, and photographs will reveal more about the business and social life of this eccentric visionary.

831 Queen St. East. (705) 759-5443. Open from mid April until mid Nov. and by appointment for groups as small as 10. Current hours: from mid April thru May Mon-Fri 9:30 to 4:30. From June through mid-October open 7 days, 9:30 to 4:30. From mid-Oct thru mid-November open Mon-Fri 9:30 to 4:30. Admission $5/adult ($4 U.S.), $3 for seniors and children under 12. $12/family. Wheelchair-accessible: ground floor & summer kitchen, grounds
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