Jellicoe

 Zroback Station Jellicoe Station Nezah Station

Jellicoe was one of the five divisional points created during the construction of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) line between Sudbury and Port Arthur, Ontario (now Thunder Bay). It was situated at Milepost 150.5 of the Long Lake Subdivision and Milepost 0 of the Nipigon Subdivision. It was originally named Hector, but the name was changed in 1914 by Arthur J. Hills, a superintendent with Canadian Northern. Jellicoe honoured the British Admiral of the Fleet, John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe.

As the divisional point, Jellicoe was home to a station, 6 stall roundhouse, boarding house, two section houses, water and coal facilities, a large rail yard and two wyes (it appears as though the original wye on the east side of the yard was abandoned and shifted to the west side at some point after the 1950s). The station was similar to the one located at another divisional point on the line, Foleyet, and was removed circa 1979 or 1980.

In 1923, major changes occurred at Jellicoe. Canadian National Railways (CNR), the successor to CNoR, completed construction on the Nakina Cut-off, which relegated the line from Longlac to Port Arthur to secondary status. The western portion of the Long Lake Subdivision (from Longlac to Jellicoe) became the CNR-Kinghorn Subdivision, with Jellicoe at Milepost 49.7, while the entire Nipigon Subdivision was renamed the CNR-Dorion Subdivision (this was likely done to avoid confusion with Canadian Pacific’s Nipigon Subdivision). In 1960, CNR merged the Kinghorn and Dorion Subdivision, though Jellicoe retained its crew change facilities.

Jellicoe experienced a resurgence in business in the 1930s and following decades when mining and logging were booming in the area, such as the Sturgeon River Gold Rush.

For more information on the history of Jellicoe, please read Jellicoe: A Description of the Community’s LIfe to 1937 compiled by Ben Nelson and Where the heck is Jellicoe? by Lise Koning.

Click here to see a 2009 Google Streetview image of of the Highway 11 crossing at Jellicoe with the rails still in place.

There are numerous videos of Jellicoe in the playlist below.