Elliot Lake

Elliot Lake is a city of about 11,400 people (2021) in northern Ontario. The former mining boomtown has attempted to market itself (and its stock of inexpensive vacant housing) to retirees and visitors with mixed results.

Understand
Elliot Lake was established in 1955 as a uranium mining community; it reached its economic peak in the 1980s before entering a long period of population decline due to resource depletion and weak export demand.

The city sits on the Canadian Shield, and is surrounded by dense forest, muskeg swamps, numerous lakes, winding rivers, and hills of Precambrian bedrock. The local forests are mixed deciduous and coniferous, with colourful displays in the autumn.

Local wildlife include moose, white-tailed deer, American black bear, beaver, loon, muskrat, otter, Canada goose, and lynx, to name but a few. Fish species include lake trout, speckled trout, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, pickerel (walleye), and sturgeon.

History
Prior to the settlement of the city, an Ojibwa village existed near the present hospital site on the lake's shoreline.

The city was established as a planned community for the mining industry in 1955 after the discovery of uranium in the area, and named after the small lake on its northern edge. By the late 1950s, its population had grown to about 25,000. The population has varied with several boom-and-bust cycles from the 1950s to the 1990s, from a high of over 26,000 to a low of about 6,600.

In 1959, the United States declared that it would buy no more uranium from Canada after 1962. During the 1970s, federal government plans for CANDU reactors and Ontario Hydro's interest in atomic energy led the town, anticipating a population of 30,000, to expand again. However, by the early 1990s, depleted reserves and low prices caused the last mines in the area to close.

In the years since, the city has found some success promoting itself as a retirement community and tourist destination. In the late 2000s, mineral exploration began taking place in the area, with at least one new mine under preliminary development by start-up miner Pele Mountain Resources

The Algo Centre Mall, built during the 1980s mining boom years, partially collapsed in 2012 due to severe design error. Water and road salt, allowed to leak from a rooftop parking lot for years, corroded structural metal in the building until it failed. Two people were killed. A new outdoor mall (Pearson Plaza) was built in 2016.

Get in
Elliot Lake is 27 km north of Trans-Canada Highway 17 on Ontario Highway 108. Exit the Trans-Canada at the tiny hamlet of Serpent River.

Elliot Lake Municipal Airport has no regularly scheduled flights.

Five Seasons Transit offers a charter shuttle to Sudbury and to Toronto airport.

By bus

 * Operates a route between Sault Sainte Marie and Sudbury including stops in Blind River, Elliot Lake, and Espanola.

Get around
There are four local city bus routes. The main transfer points are the Rexall drugstore in the centre of town and the Foodland at Pearson Plaza. There is no local bus on Sunday.

There are two taxi operators:
 * Taxi Plus (+1 705 461-6161) and
 * Union Taxi (+1 705 848-7111).

Hire cars are available from Practicar (23 Perini Rd, +1 705 848-4111).

There is a U-Haul agency at 9 Perini Rd. (+1 705 848-0730).

Do


Other activities in the local area include walking trails, beaches, 300 km of ATV trails, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing.