*****History*****

Logging in the wilderness forests of Ontario was at its peak in the late 19th & early 20th century. The logs would be cut in the winter
and hauled onto the ice. In the spring, when the rivers were swollen from the spring thaw, they would be floated downriver to markets
in Ottawa, Quebec and even overseas to Europe. The Madawaska River, which originates in the Lake of Two Rivers in Algonquin Park and
terminates at Arnprior Ont, where it flows into the Ottawa River, was used extensively for this purpose. Logging was an extremely
dangerous business especially for the log drivers who floated the logs down river. The Madawaska River was very treacherous in places.
Slate Falls was one of these places and it claimed the lives of many men who came from all over to earn a meager living on the annual
river drive. When the logs would "jam up" it would be the job of these log drivers to clear the jam quickly before it became too large
and to get the logs moving again. They had to walk out on the tangled logs in the fast moving water and attempt to clear the jam with
long pike poles. If this didn't work they would use dynamite. They took extreme risks & many were drowned or died from other accidents.
They used no safety equipment and no life jackets. If the body was recovered, sometimes much later, it would be buried wherever it was
found, wherever a grave could be dug. It was not practical in those times to return the body to his family because no access roads
existed to these wilderness areas to permit a timely return. Therefore, many men were buried along the Madawaska River in unmarked graves
where they were found. The inscriptions, chiseled by hand into the granite rocks at Slate Falls by their friends and fellow workers, are a
permanent record of only some of the unfortunate men who died and are buried near Slate Falls, earning their livelihood driving logs
down the Madawaska River.

History provided by Garnet Wilkes.