Timmins | |
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City (single-tier) | |
City of Timmins | |
Timmins, Ontario, Canada
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Motto: The City with a Heart of Gold | |
Coordinates: 48°28′N 81°20′W / 48.467°N 81.333°WCoordinates: 48°28′N 81°20′W / 48.467°N 81.333°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | Ontario |
District | Cochrane |
Established | 1912 |
Government | |
• Mayor | Steve Black |
• Governing Body | Timmins City Council |
• MPs | Charlie Angus (NDP) |
• MPPs | Gilles Bisson (ONDP) |
Area | |
• Land | 2,979.15 km2 (1,150.26 sq mi) |
Elevation | 294.70 m (966.86 ft) |
Population (2011) | |
• Total | 43,165 |
• Density | 14.5/km2 (38/sq mi) |
Time zone | EST (UTC−5) |
• Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC−4) |
Postal code FSA | P4N, P4P, P4R, P0N |
Area code(s) | 705 and 249 |
Website | www.timmins.ca |
Timmins is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada on the Mattagami River. At the time of the Canada 2011 Census, its population was 43,165. The city's economy is based on natural resource extraction and is supported by industries related to lumbering and to the mining of gold, zinc, copper, nickel, and silver.
As the fourth-largest city in the Northeastern Ontario region, Timmins also serves as a regional service and distribution centre. The city has a large Francophone community, with more than 50 percent bilingual in French.
Research performed by archaeologists indicate that human settlement in the area is at least 6,000 years old; it's believed the oldest traces found are from a nomadic people of the Shield Archaic culture.
Up until contact with settlers, the land belonged to the Mattagami First Nation peoples. Treaty Number Nine of 1906 pushed this tribe to the north side of the Mattagami Lake, the site of a Hudson's Bay trading post first established in 1794. In the 1950s, the reservation was relocated to the south side of the lake, to its present-day reservation.
The development of Timmins is due to the rich ore deposits of the Canadian Shield. Originally a company town, it was founded by Noah Timmins in 1912 following gold discoveries in the Porcupine Camp a few years earlier.
On June 9, 1909, Harry Preston slipped on a rocky knoll and the heels of his boots stripped the moss to reveal a large vein of gold, which later became the Dome Mine. Benny Hollinger discovered the nearby Hollinger Gold Mine in 1910. Noah and Henry Timmins bought into the Hollinger Mine shortly after. On the same day as the Hollinger discovery, Sandy McIntyre discovered the McIntyre Mine near Pearl Lake, four miles away. These mines are known as the "Big Three."