The Hawk Lake log chute is a preserved piece of Canada's past in the Haliburton region. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of chutes like this across the country at the peak of the logging industry. They helped to open the country to resource extraction and settlement, which is why the Township of Algonquin Highlands has rebuilt and preserved this model from the 1860s.

But could it, or perhaps, should it, stand for more than just a colonial victory over the natural world? In this episode of Living History, we'll learn how these chutes transformed the lumber industry, but also led to major harms to both the natural world and Indigenous peoples.