The late Queen Elizabeth never visited Timmins. The closest she and Prince Philip ever got was Kapuskasing in October, 1951, when she still a princess. They were on a railroad tour across Canada and spent a night in the Kapuskasing Inn.
Timmins Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann calls the Tudor style inn the jewel of Northern Ontario hotels.
Prince Philip toured the Spruce Falls paper mill.
“They also invited a number of the mayors and reeves from the region for a dinner at the Inn,” says Bachmann. “So the mayor of Timmins at the time was Philip Fay and his wife Amelia, they both went and enjoyed the festivities.”
Bachmann recounts a story told by a chambermaid at the Inn. The maid went up to floor of the hotel where the Royal Couple was staying.
“And she said I noticed that Prince Philip was chasing Princess Elizabeth and she was laughing and they were both giggling and she thought ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t see that’, but you know, they were a young couple in love and that’s what young couples in love do.”
The visit to Kap was part of a train tour of Canada, introducing Canadians to their future Queen.