Kenora (2006 population 15,177), originally named Rat Portage, is a small city situated on the Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, close to the Manitoba boundary, and about 200 km (124 mi) east of Winnipeg. Kenora is home to the annual International Bass Fishing Tournament. It is the seat of Kenora District. The town of Kenora was amalgamated with the towns of Keewatin and Jaffray Melick in 2000 to form the present-day City of Kenora.
History
Kenora's future site was in the territory of the Sioux when the first European, Jacques De Noyon, sighted Lake of the Woods in 1688. Pierre La Verendrye established a secure French trading post, Fort St. Charles, to the south of present-day Kenora near the current Canada/U.S. border in 1732, and France maintained the post until 1763 when it lost the territory to the British in the Seven Years' War — until then, it was the most northwesterly settlement of New France. In 1836 the Hudson's Bay Company established a post on Old Fort Island, and in 1861, the Company opened a post on the mainland at Kenora's current location.
In 1878, the Company surveyed lots for the permanent settlement of Rat Portage — the community kept that name until 1905, when it was renamed to Kenora. The name, "Kenora," was coined by combining the first two letters of Keewatin, Norman (two nearby communities) and Rat Portage. Gold and the railroad were both important in the community's early history: gold was first discovered in the area in 1850, and by 1893, 20 mines were operating within 24 km (15 mi) of Rat Portage, and the first Canadian ocean-to-ocean train passed through in 1886 on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Later, the Trans-Canada Highway passed through Kenora in 1932, placing the community on both of Canada\s major transcontinental transportation routes.
The logging industry, which was important earlier, declined in the second part of the 20th century as the tourist industry grew, and the last log boom was towed into Kenora in 1985. In 1967, the year of the Canadian Centennial, Kenora erected a sculpture known as Husky the Muskie which has become the town's effective mascot and one of its most recognizable features.
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