Balaclava in Renfrew County, Ontario is a near ghost town today, a come down from the bustling lumber town of its heyday. It was begun with a sawmill in 1855 and by the 1860 had acquired a blacksmith shop and hotel to go with its permanent residents. In 1903 a sawdust burner was built so that the sawdust wasn't dumped in the local river polluting it. The sawmill continued to operate until 1959 but by that time the depletion of available timber had reduced production to uneconomically small amounts. Balaclava was listed in a popular book on ghost towns by Ron Brown. Although it makes Balaclava sound like a pristine, deserted ghost town, actually it is just off highway 513 and still has a few residents.
External links
 Balaclava Mill, 2007 |
 Balaclava Mill, 2007 |
 Balaclava Mill, 2007 |
 Balaclava Mill - Sawdust Burner, 2007 |
 Balaclava Misc Buildings, 2007 |
 Balaclava Blacksmith(?), 2007 |
