North Bay Travel Guide

North Bay is located approximately 330 kilometres north of Toronto, and differs in geography from Southern Ontario in that North Bay is situated on the Canadian Shield. This gives rise to a different and more rugged landscape.

North Bay lies on the "route of the voyagers", that watery highway that leads to the interior of North America, through which most explorers and missionaries followed to seek their fame and fortune. This waterway follows an ancient fault in the Canadian Shield that now forms the backdrop for urban North Bay, which is known as the North Bay Escarpment. This escarpment became a barrier to the construction of a transcontinental railway, the CPR, and its selected route hugged the shores of Lake Nipissing to avoid this topographic constraint.

Urban North Bay straddles a land bridge between the Ottawa River watershed and that of the Great Lakes. On its eastern door step lies Trout Lake, the headwater of the Mattawa River and the source of the City's drinking water. Trout Lake, with a depth of 60 meters, is a cold water fishery that holds the distinction of supplying some of the best quality drinking water in the province of Ontario. The area of North Bay contains a number of ancient volcanic pipes, including the Manitou Islands and Callander Bay and many exposed dykes and batholiths.

North Bay, critically situated at the junctions of Highway 11 and Highway 17, remains a major transportation centre for Northern Ontario. It is the southern terminus of the Ontario Northland Railway, and is served by the Jack Garland Airport.