Togo and Gogama - kayak adventure on Minisinakwa and Mattagami

Togo is the name of at least three sites in Canada. The Togo Rapid explored here is in Togo township in the Ontario northlands. The other Togo is in the Saskatchewan province. They are all linked to the Canadian National railroad which in 1906 was being built as the CNoR by the Canadian Northern Railway group; Mann and McKenzie. They extended the railroad towards Capreol and the south. Gogama Station was a stop along the way and began operating around 1913. Capreal Station was a Junction and the CNoR moved in two directions by 1915. Admiral Togo was a Japanese warrior fighting against the Russians in 1906. Why did his story influence Canadian social engineers to name these sites after him ?
Togo Rapids are a drop between Minisinakwa lake and Mattagami lake and the Mattagami river system which leads to Moose River and to James Bay as part of this Abitibi forest Atlantic watershed. The bigger story of Togo rapids and Gogama involves a Hudson’s Bay Trading post and an Orkney, Scotland, kid who came this way in the late 1800’s. He married a local girl and created several Metis children as the story shifted with the 1906 James Bay Treaty or Treaty 9.
This treaty involved natives from as far north as Fort Albany and Albany river which is where the basic story of the Hudson’s Bay Company began in the 1660’s when Prince Rupert and King Charles II were dealing with Medard Chouart and Pierre Esprit Radisson.
Several smaller rivers drain into Minisinakwa lake; Mollie, Makami, Noble. All of the water flows by a water level dam and then flows towards the Togo Rapids a few miles downstream.

[@riversandcoffee]

What a great area to explore... Thanks 👍

[@flynorthprod]

Nice drone flying - great history as always!👍

[@Sayitaint_So]

trip to Gogama was worth it... however this history stuff keeps on giving and the James Miller stuff has me wanting to go to Magnetawan river and Miller's Falls and to Larder Lake where i believe the story extends as the traders worked the northlands .... lol - in the end there could be 20 people working this project and taking drones along and the story would still be only fractionally told - a version of it anyway