An old sign of Barrie’s history is getting a new look.
City councillors directed staff Wednesday night to consult with the Ontario Heritage Trust about the location, design and content of signs for the Nine Mile Portage, and report back to the Heritage Barrie committee.
The old metal and blue Nine Mile Portage sign sat for years in what is now Meridian Place, and marked the portage’s exact landing place.
“It’s probably the most historic site in the city, goes back to like the 1600s,” said Ward 2 Coun. Craig Nixon, who represents Barrie’s downtown.
Established in 1967, the Ontario Heritage Trust is the province's heritage agency and has a statutory responsibility for identifying, preserving, protecting and promoting built, cultural and natural heritage across the province.
The Nine Mile Portage sign has been stored at the city’s operations centre on Ferndale Drive.
Amateur city historian Dieter Mueller has long lobbied for it being relocated at its old spot, and Nixon thanked him for his efforts.
Memorial Square/Meridian Place, located in downtown Barrie at Dunlop and Owen streets, was known as post office square and then Fred Grant square, after a nearby street.
Kempenfelt Bay’s former lakeshore was the Landing Place, the eastern end of the Nine Mile Portage, Mueller has said.
Indigenous people used the portage and were followed by French explorers, fur traders, the British Military, surveyors and pioneers. The portage became unnecessary with the expansion of local roads in about 1835.
As Barrie grew, the Landing Place was buried, becoming landlocked and away from Kempenfelt Bay.
Mueller has estimated the Nine Mile Portage sign was erected in post office square in June 1957. He says the spot where it was rooted was the exact location of the Landing Place on Kempenfelt Bay, where canoes and bateaux used to arrive. Eventually, the post office was torn down and the square was renovated and unofficially called Fred Grant square.
The city has already addressed the situation. Staff consulted with Ontario Heritage Trust during the planning of the Waterfront Heritage Trail, which consolidated Barrie’s interpretive sign collection into thematic trail lay-by stations and upgraded the interpretive sign system.
The city replaced the old Nine Mile Portage sign with the two new updated interpretive signs in Station 9 in Heritage Park, near its parking lot along Simcoe Street, providing information and graphics.
The sign’s historic name has also survived with the Nine Mile Portage Heritage Trail, a multi-use recreational trail running between Memorial Square/Meridian Place in downtown Barrie and Fort Willow in Springwater Township.
