The 162nd Battalion in Sundridge
The Northern Pioneers were the local unit of Canada’s 75,000 strong pre World War 1 militia, or non professional soldiers. The city militia units drilled and trained in armories throughout the year, activity for rural units was limited to an annual two week outing, unusually on regular army training bases. The headquarters of the Northern Pioneers was in Parry Sound. The unit encompassed all of Muskoka-Parry Sound. The regiment was divided into eight distinct companies. Each company represented a different settled part of the area. For the summer camp in 1912, the company from Loring had to travel west for 30 miles on a wagon road through the bush to catch a train at Salines (now called Dorocourt).
With the outbreak of World War 1 the Canadian Parliament voted to send 25,000 men overseas. There were only 3,100 men in the army. But the militia had 75,000 summer soldiers on the rolls. A call went out for volunteers. The 23rd Regiment ( The Northern Pioneers) consisted of only 300-400 men in all eight companies based in various areas from Parry Sound/Muskoka and the city of North Bay. These 1500 men traveled north to Val Caron. Here they joined the First Battalion. With 18 other battalions the unit traveled overseas to Britain. Some of these soldiers fought at Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele.
Within 18 months of the beginning of the war, Robert Borden, Canada’s Prime Minister, declared his intention to double the nation’s military force. This meant that our military had half a million men in service. With the whole country having a population of only eight million this was a tall order.
To encourage recruitment, Minister of Militia Sir Sam Hughes designated each electoral district a battalion. The Northern Pioneers’ former area was now cut in two. Each having its own Battalion (Parry Sound and Muskoka). The Battalions were numbered 162nd and 122nd respectively.
The insignia for the 162nd was adopted because of all the lumbermen who dropped their pick axes and took up rifles.
In May 1916 around 700 men set up camp in Sundridge and the 162nd was born.
The 162nd was the successor to the Northern Pioneers. Many of the same men served both in designations.
Companies of 100 or more men were formed in the various quarters of the district and rows of tents set up in a sandy field on Paget’s farm in Sundridge. This was were all the 162nd received their basic training.
The locals referred to them as “Jim Arthur’s’ Pot and Frying Pan Brigade.” Lieutenant Colonel James Arthurs (from Powassan) was the officer commanding the unit.
In Sundridge the men learned to form fours and march in step. Here they learned skirmishing or advancing in line with covering fire from the rear, bayonet drill, simultaneous movements, square bashing and marksmanship. They marched twenty miles in full pack every day. But most importantly they learned to obey a command.
Here they became a regiment. Pride in the outfit was starting to show on the day that an issue of straw hats arrived and the men turned up the right side of the brim.
Colin Cudmore of Sundridge narrated the following account. Mr. Cudmore lived in Sprucedale as a boy. " I worked for Joe Edgar in the summer of 1916. Another chap and I delivered all the groceries to the camp with one big horse. Edgar had the contract for all the foodstuffs. Willard Lang had the contract for fresh meat.
We hauled everything to the big tent where all the supplies were kept and the cooking was done. I knew all those fellows. They were from all over this district. There were smaller tents where meals were served. The sleeping quarters for the men were in round tents-about four men for each tent. Officers had their own quarters.
The 162nd went on route marches about four miles or so beyond camp usually they marched through the village. I used to watch them leading their mascot-a big black bear weighting about 200 pounds. As they marched, one man stationed on each side of him and one behind. The soldiers while marching, wore straw hats turned up at the side. Sundridge was very busy that summer. Johnstones did a big business in ice cream. At the Queen’s Hotel, tables were placed outside in an enclosure where beer was served."
The Women’s Institute presented their colours to the 162nd Battalion in Sundridge on July 6th 1916.
On August 11, 1916, the men received a hardy good-bye. Stuffed with pie and cake the men entrained for Camp Niagara-on-the-lake, the men arrived and here they announced that they were “The Timber Wolves of the North”. At Niagara-on-the-lake the men received additional training.
The new name of the battalion was “The Timber Wolves”. At the camp the group harvested a large group of metals, no other unit around Camp Niagara could beat the men in the tug of war. In a letter home, one fellow declared that in his estimation a single member of his company could clean up one of the battalions of “puny pale faces” from Southern Ontario.
Camaraderie reached its peak when one young soldier was found medically unfit for duty; he refused to leave the camp. Being late in the training, the other members of the company found an old uniform, a kit salvaged from discards and smuggled him aboard the train and on to England. The 162nd caulked on the train to Halifax, “162nd Parry Sound Timber Wolves, the Berlin or Bust Battalion”.
Unfortunately it was to bust. In England the Battalion never went to battle as a complete unit. They were broken up and used as a blood bank to help replace the 24,000 Canadian casualties incurred in the slaughter on the Somme in the fall of 1916. Of the 724 men who embarked 96 were to be killed in action.
The cenotaph in Sundridge shows that the following soldiers from this area were killed at St. Julien and Vimy Ridge in W.W.I: Pte. Earl Duke, Pte. Henry Osborne, Sergt. Jas. Minorgan, Pte. J. E. Hornibrook, Lieut. N. J. Harkness, Sergt. W. D. Stuart, Pte. Dan Astley, Pte. R. Pinkerton, Pte. Adolph Bossert, Pte. Levi Robbins, Pte. A. Cuthbertson, Pte. Hezekiah Towle, Corp. Claude Duke, Pte. T. R. Burtch, Pte. John James, Pte. C. Burnes.
Cenotaph
in Sundridge
In
Memory of the 162nd Battalion World War I