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North Lake

Addie Lake Station North Lake Station Leeblain Station

North Lake Station was located at Milepost 71 on the railway. It was one of the original stops on the line; the station was a simple log structure that measured 40 feet by 26 feet (12.2m x 7.9m).

Prior to 1899, a turning “wye” was installed which allowed locomotives to reverse direction without travelling all the way to Gunflint to utilize the one there. Over the next number of years, North Lake gained additional structures, including a coal bunker, section house and siding. It became the terminus of the line when Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) stopped running trains to Gunflint Narrows in 1902.

The station featured in the pictures below was constructed circa 1907 by Canadian Northern. It was designed by Ralph Benjamin Pratt, and was one of CNoR’s Third-Class stations, which were used in rural areas. North Lake featured the newly introduced Plan 100-29, which was a revision of the original Plan 100-3 used on her sister station at Silver Mountain. The updated design was 4 feet (1.23m) longer than its predecessor, which changed the shape of the roof and resulted in a structure that measured 46 feet by 22 feet (14m x 6.7m). A garage and machine shop were built approximately .8 miles (1.36km) further west at the end of steel, just north of property owned by the Bishop Family.

The station was likely built to serve first the Pigeon River Lumber Company’s logging operations at Gunflint Lake which lasted until 1909. Later, Archie Bishop operated a sawmill at North Lake from circa 1911 to 1919 which created a small community of workers nearby. George Matthews also operated a sawmill in the area prior to 1919.

North Lake was abandoned in 1923 when the new owners of the lIne, Canadian National Railways (CNR), stopped running trains past Mackies (MP 47).

An effort was made to save the station in the 1970s, which failed but resulted in the construction of a replica station at nearby Addie Lake. The replica survived until 2004.

For more information, please visit the North Lake Station Wikipedia page here.

For more information and pictures on Canadian Northern’s Third-class stations, please see: Canadian National’s Western Depots : The Country Stations in Western Canada by Charles Bohi

Link to 1911 and 1917 maps.