Mattice
When
you enter Mattice from the east, you’ll be greeted by a dinosaur.
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T-Rex has no cultural significance to the town. There isn’t a museum around. He's not the town mascot. To my knowledge no dinosaur bones have been found in the area. It’s just decoration on someone’s front lawn. Think of it as an especially eccentric garden gnome.
I’ve been told by a Mattice resident that the T-Rex was built by the owner of the Mattice Motel to attract tourists. It turns out that the stegosaurus was destroyed by a new owner when then previous owner left to pursue his dinosaur dreams elsewhere. Seriously. It turns out he left to build a concrete Jurassic park in the Ottawa region. There used to be a stegosaurus in town, as well.
Mattice is one of these tiny northern towns on Highway 11 that has a little bar, an LCBO (full store too!), and a skidoo repair shop, but only the tiniest of grocery stores that would barely qualify as a grocery store in more urban areas in southern Ontario.
Set on the Missinaibi
River, Mattice used to be a starting point for Voyageurs heading downstream
for the fur trade. There’s a historical plaque and one of Highway 11’s
classier statues to commemorate its history. About two kilometres upstream, there’s a traditional Aboriginal burial ground.
If
you go north on one of Mattice’s side street you’ll find the nice riverfront
park. It’s
actually quite a nice park, with a boat launch, a picnic area, and an inexplicable
pile of rocks (that, it turns out, were used in the refurbishment of the Missinaibi
Bridge. And then left there for posterity’s sake.)
Back to James Bay Frontier Map
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You tube
video of a quarry explosion near Mattice, Ontario.
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