It is geographically the largest division in Ontario: at 407,213.01 square kilometres (157,225.82 sq mi), it covers 38 percent of the province's area, making it larger than Newfoundland and Labrador, and slightly smaller than Sweden or roughly the land size of California. Kenora District also has the lowest population density of any of Ontario's census divisions (it ranks 37th out of 50 by total population).
The district was created in 1907 from parts of Rainy River District. The northern part (north of the Albany River) only became part of Ontario in 1912 (transferred from the Northwest Territories).[4] The separate Patricia District upon transfer, it was in 1937 annexed to Kenora District and known sometimes as the Patricia Portion.[5]
Politics
As with the other districts of Northern Ontario, the Kenora District does not have an organized government like those of counties or regional municipalities in Southern Ontario. All government services in the district are instead provided by the local municipalities, by local services boards in some unincorporated communities, or directly by the provincial government.
Geography
The climate is very harsh because of the influence of the cold waters of Hudson and JamesBays: most of the region is taiga characterized by discontinuous permafrost, but on the extreme northern coast there are – remarkably for a latitude of only 54°N – patches of true Arctic tundra and continuous permafrost. This is the southernmost point in the Northern Hemisphere reached by the circumpolar line of continuous permafrost on any continent.
Kenora District is geographically extensive enough to share borders with both the contiguous United States (the boundary between it and the Northwest Angle is located in the Lake of the Woods) and the Canadian Arctic waters (Hudson Bay), the only district in Canada to do so.
Provincial boundaries of Canada prior to 1912. The portion of Ontario's modern boundaries which is not represented as part of Ontario in this map constitutes the "Patricia Portion" of Kenora District.
The Patricia Portion is the part of the Kenora District lying north of the Albany River, which was transferred from the Northwest Territories to Ontario on May 15, 1912, in The Ontario Boundaries Extension Act.[4] This area was originally a separate division, Patricia District, but became part of Kenora District in 1937.[5]
With the exception of a few communities along the northernmost ends of Highway 599 and the Highway 105/Highway 125 corridor, the Patricia Portion consists almost entirely of remote First Nations communities that are only accessible by float plane or winter road. Accordingly, the term "Patricia Portion" is still sometimes used to distinguish the region from the relatively more populated and road-accessible southern portion.
Demographics
As a census division in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Kenora District had a population of 66,000 living in 24,818 of its 32,914 total private dwellings, a change of 0.7% from its 2016 population of 65,533. With a land area of 395,432.07 km2 (152,677.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 0.2/km2 (0.4/sq mi) in 2021.[1]
Notes: Excludes census data for one or more incompletely enumerated Indian reserves. References: 2021[7] 2016[8] 2011[9] earlier[10][11]
Historical census populations – Kenora District
Year
Pop.
±%
1921
19,139
—
1931
25,919
+35.4%
1941
33,372
+28.8%
1951
39,212
+17.5%
1956
47,156
+20.3%
1961
51,474
+9.2%
Year
Pop.
±%
1966
53,995
+4.9%
1971
53,230
−1.4%
1976
57,980
+8.9%
1981
59,421
+2.5%
1986
52,834
−11.1%
1991
58,748
+11.2%
Year
Pop.
±%
1996
63,335
+7.8%
2001
61,802
−2.4%
2006
64,419
+4.2%
2011
57,607
−10.6%
2016
65,533
+13.8%
2021
66,000
+0.7%
Excludes census data for one or more incompletely enumerated Indian reserves. Population counts are not adjusted for boundary changes. Source: Statistics Canada[1][12]
Economy
Most of the population is concentrated in the district's extreme south where some agriculture is possible: the main crop is barley. Traditional native activities such as hunting and fishing dominate the north of the district outside of mining settlements.
Mining
The area near Lake Minnehaha saw a gold rush between 1902 and 1909. The settlement of Gold Rock served 14 area mines, which included the Big Master, Laurentian, Detola and Elora. According to Barnes, "Approximately 180,000 ounces of gold was won from 27 mines in the Kenora district from 1880 to 1976," with "over 331 known gold occurrences." The more successful mines included the Bully Boy, Cameron Island, Champion, Combined, Cornucopia, Gold Hill, Golden Horn, Kenricia, Mikado, Oliver, Olympia, Ophyr, Regina, Scramble, Severn, Stella, Sultana, Treasure and Wendigo.[13]
Mining is currently extremely extensive in northern Kenora District, which contains some of the world's largest and highest-grade reserves of uranium and some of the world's major producers of nickel. A major mining exploration project is currently underway in the Ring of Fire region, centred on the district's isolated McFaulds Lake.
^"1971 Census of Canada - Population Census Subdivisions (Historical)". Catalogue 92-702 Vol I, part 1 (Bulletin 1.1-2). Statistics Canada: 76, 139. July 1973.
^Barnes, Michael (1995). Gold in Ontario. Erin: The Boston Mills Press. pp. 23–26. ISBN155046146X.
