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Devil's Rock

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1620706

Devil's Rock

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Devil's Rock

Devil's Rock (also known as Devils Rock; Anishinaabe: Mani-doo Aja-bikong or Manidoo Wabikong) is a granite escarpment located 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of Temiskaming Shores, Ontario, Canada. The cliffs rise 300 feet (91 m) above Lake Timiskaming and extend nearly as far underwater as they do above, giving Devil's Rock a cliff face roughly 600 feet (180 m) tall.

Devil's Rock exists within the territories of the Anishinaabe nation, a First Nations civilization. According to an 1879 account by a European trader using the pseudonym Sha-Ka-Nash, the cliffs were originally known as "Manidoo-Wabikong" (English: "Manitou rock") and were a sacred place where offerings of tobacco were made. Some sites in the region that were once named for the Manitou were renamed by missionaries to reference the Devil in an effort to Christianize Indigenous communities by framing their deities as evil spirits. Manidoo-Wabikong was one such site, and thus became known as "Devil's Rock". Following European colonization the region became part of British North America before Canadian Confederation occurred in 1867, when it was integrated into the province of Ontario.

In the early 1900s, Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of Canada claimed that there must be deposits of silver at Devil's Rock but was unable to find any himself. When the Cobalt silver rush picked up in nearby Cobalt, Ontario, nationally acclaimed lacrosse player Matthew Murphy discovered the first silver deposits at Devil's Rock and lay claim to them, as well as two others. Murphy moved to Haileybury from his hometown of Cornwall, Ontario and from 1903 to 1912 employed miners to exploit a number of veins along the cliffs. As the veins were readily accessible from the water, Murphy opted not to build mine shafts from the cliff tops down and instead decided to have the miners transport their finds from the cliffs to the shore using drifts, with tunnels being dug into the cliffs to reach the lodes located below the shoreline. Ottawa resident Jackson Booth managed the Devil's Rock mines. Murphy's mines left behind tunnels that can still be entered today. Proceeds from the mines made Matt Murphy wealthy, and he invested some of his wealth into local sports venues including ice rinks.

While searching for Anishinaabe pictographs in 1929, mountaineer and occultist Aleister Crowley visited Devil's Rock at the suggestion of local miners. Crowley attempted to climb a section of the cliffs known as the "Finger of God", along a route known to modern rock climbers as "Samson"; during this climb one of his chockstones became trapped in the stone, where it remained for decades.

The steamship Meteor was the only passenger vessel that traversed Lake Temiskaming until 1899, and the ship would not be decommissioned until 1923. During this time the ship was hugely popular for sight-seeing along the lake, and its owners would run advertisements inviting travellers to take a trip aboard the ship and view the area's scenic landmarks, including Devil's Rock.

Prior to the annexation of North Cobalt by Haileybury in 1971, there was a minor rift between the two communities over which had a proper claim to Devil's Rock. Haileybury and North Cobalt became part of the amalgamated community Temiskaming Shores in 2004.

Alberta-born rock climber and author David Smart noted several ascensions up the cliff face in his 1998 book Ontario's Finest Climbs, and later published a guidebook dedicated specifically to Devil's Rock. In 2010, the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor) established the Temiskaming Loop, a motorcycle touring route in the Lake Temiskaming area which encouraged visiting local attractions, including Devil's Rock. It has also been named as an "Area of Natural & Scientific Interest" by the Temiskaming Rift Valley Aspiring Geopark, which has proposed creating a geosite that encompasses Devil's Rock.

Devil's Rock is an instrusive contact made of quartz diabase. It is part of the Nipissing sills and fronts on the Timiskaming Graben. The stone which forms the escarpment was formed by volcanic activity 2.2 billion years ago.

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