Ontario War Memorials: White River

Saturday, 15 February 2020

White River

Location: Algoma District N 48.58811 W -85.28136
In front of the Municipal Building, 102 Durham Street.

White River began as a rail town on the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. The town finally became accessible by car in 1961 with the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway. Forestry is the major industry in this area, and the railway siding is busy hauling timber products processed from the White River Forest Products complex.
The town is perhaps best known for being the home of Winnie the Pooh. In August 1914, a trapped black bear cub was sold to Captain Harry Colebourn while his train stopped for a rest in White River, and Colebourn named it "Winnie", after his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. He took her across the Atlantic with him to Salibury Plain, where she became an unofficial mascot of the Fort Garry Horse, a militia cavalry regiment. Colebourn himself was a member of the Royal Canadian Veterinary Corps attached to the Fort Garry Horse as a veterinarian. While Colebourn served three years in France, attaining the rank of major, he kept Winnie at the London Zoo, to which he eventually donated her.
It was at the London Zoo that A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin Milne encountered Winnie. Christopher was so taken with her that he named his teddy bear after her, which became the inspiration for Milne's fictional character in the books Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928).
The town celebrates "Winnie's Hometown Festival" every third week in August. Even in the horror of the Great War, came something that has been loved and cherished by young children across the world, and that story began here, along the railside, by men headed to war.

The military background to this story never mentions the sacrifice made by local men of this area during the World Wars. Their names appear on the memorial found in front of the Municipal Offices.
A large red Maple Leaf stands proudly on top of a cobblestone base. A simple yet attractive memorial, a fitting tribute to those who paid the ultimate price for freedom.