The municipality renamed itself from North Himsworth to Callander in 2003, adopting the name of its major community because, in the words of then-mayor Bill Brazeau, "Nobody knew where North Himsworth was."[4]
Communities
The main community of Callander is located in the northeast corner of the municipality, along the eastern shore of Callander Bay.
The south shore of Callander Bay and Lake Nipissing (southwest of the town) represents the rural population of Callander, which primarily runs along Highway 654 West. This area includes the communities of Wisawasa and Lighthouse Beach.
History
Callander Bay is an eroded Proterozoicvolcanic pipe formed by the violent, supersonic eruption of a deep-origin volcano, approximately 500 million years ago. It is one of eight known volcanic sites in Ontario, including the Manitou Islands in North Bay.
The first people in the Callander area were of Ojibwa and Algonquin descent who have lived around Lake Nipissing for about 9,400 years. Though in history known by many names, they are currently known as Nipissing First Nation. They are generally considered part of the Anishinaabe peoples, a grouping which includes the Odaawaa, Ojibwe and Algonquins.
In 1880, George Morrison, a bookkeeper from Oxford County in Southern Ontario travelled by ox-cart from Muskoka to Lake Nipissing. There he built a raft and floated his family and possessions across the lake to the south-east bay. Logging companies had taken interest in the abundant Eastern White Pine that grew in the area. He was one of its first pioneers and his wife was the first white woman. On June 1, 1881, he opened a Post Office in his general store and named it after his parents' Scottish birthplace of Callander.
Lumber companies that established mills in Callander included:
Prominent people who have lived in Callander include:
The Dionne Quintuplets, the world's first surviving quintuplets (born May 28, 1934) who rose to international fame at the height of the Great Depression.
Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe (1883–1943), doctor to the Dionne Quintuplets and recipient of the Order of the British Empire. His former home on Lansdowne Street is now the Callander Bay Heritage Museum
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Callander had a population of 3,964 living in 1,636 of its 1,758 total private dwellings, a change of 2.6% from its 2016 population of 3,863. With a land area of 102.98 km2 (39.76 sq mi), it had a population density of 38.5/km2 (99.7/sq mi) in 2021.[3]
