ICE LAKE—Manitoulin turkeys have graced tables from the most humble of our Island homesteads to the grandest of hotels overlooking New York City’s Central Park over the past century and they remain, to this very day, a delicious way to celebrate a Thanksgiving repast with friends and family.
Turkeys were originally brought to Manitoulin Island by A.J. Wagg Sr. before the turn of the last century in an effort to stem a voracious tide of grasshoppers that was plaguing Manitoulin grain farms in 1890. The insects were eating everything in their wake and by contemporary accounts so complete was the devastation that sheep were left starving in their denuded pastures. So successful was Mr. Wagg’s endeavour to prove that the voracious grasshoppers were soon history and Manitoulin turkeys had begun to carve their own mark in history. Other Island farmers followed Mr. Wagg’s lead and by 1895 turkey production was proving to be a lucrative product line for many local farmers.
But the turkey is a delicate bird and many are the afflictions that can derail a turkey producer’s dreams. Sensitive to changes in temperature, especially their trademark wattles, turkeys also easily catch colds, sinusitis was simply deadly. The home remedies of the time (such as a delicate lacing of arsenic) were somewhat problematic, so the Dominion government stepped in and establishes a bureau on Manitoulin Island to teach farmers to keep their birds out of the manure (where tuberculosis lurked) and encouraged better pen conditions and diets.
Sometime before Christmas, Mr. Wagg and his fellow turkey drovers would drive their birds to the north shore of Manitoulin on foot. During the night, the birds roosted amongst the trees along the route.
Thousands of the birds would then be crated live and sent, first by ship and later by rail, to find their final resting places on tables across the continent. So prevalent was the trade that the route through the North Channel and across Georgian Bay, and down the waters of Superior, soon became known as the “Turkey Trail.”
When the rail lines reached close to Manitoulin, the enterprising Mr. Wagg built specialized turkey transporting boxcars. In summer the open-sided cars provided ventilation to cool the birds, in winter, according to author Derek McCormack, curtains shielded the birds from the ravages of winter.
So popular were the birds that the CNR is reported to have served up as much as 10,000 pounds of the birds in its dining cars and hotels each year and Toronto’s Eaton store would home deliver a bird with all the trimmings to feed six at Christmas dinner for the princely sum of three dollars.
By 1958, an eviscerating plant was opened in Gore Bay, where the hapless feathered dinner guests of honour were bled, gutted and wrapped in parcel paper. Sadly, the advent of super farms on the prairies producing tens of thousands of birds a week and the rising costs of transportation from Manitoulin Island eventually led to the demise of the Gore Bay plant. The final death knell came when supply management implemented quotas and many Island farmers sold their quota to the larger operations.
All has not been lost, however, as there remain some Island operations where an Islander can secure one of the fabled Manitoulin gobblers for their Thanksgiving or Christmas feast.
Max Burt, of The Burt Farm in Ice Lake, still produces and sells about 500 fresh turkeys a year and he maintains a list of customers who have signed up to ensure they have one of the coveted birds for their table. “I think there might still be a few left,” he said. “But you do want to call before you come out. You never know for sure how many you will have in the bag before they are in.” There is nothing quite like the taste of a fresh Manitoulin turkey and the Burt family has been in the business of turkey production for generations.
Raising turkeys is definitely not for the faint of heart, even with today’s sophisticated methods. “I always say a turkey has just enough brains for motor movement and not a lot left over for anything else,” he said. “They seem to be very creative in finding ways to commit suicide, however, and they get themselves in trouble.” Chickens, not exactly known as the philosopher kings of the avian world, are “head and shoulders above a turkey,” according to the veteran farmer.
Mr. Burt noted that the reputation of Manitoulin turkeys were such that the Royal York Hotel was still marketing them on its menu years after the Gore Bay processing plant had closed.
“They milked it for what they could you might say,” he said.
Mr. Burt said the challenges for raising turkeys in a free range capacity these days comes more from avian flu than the ancient scourges that once plagued flocks. “You have to find a balance between what the consumer wants and what makes for safe farm practices,” he said. Today, his birds live in an open sided pole barn and receive plenty of natural light and space to roam around, but are shielded from anything that could impede their health and wellbeing from the wild.
