Thane,

Interesting to learn that many barns in your part of Ontario are gambrel configurations. Given that, and going by my New England perspective, I'm inclined to say that the "barnscape" is relatively young there in that section of Ontario. What kind of date-ranges are typical?

Here in Maine, many barns are mid-late 19th century gable-roof, gable-entry configurations.



Norther Hewer,

Perhaps you can enlighten us on the immigrant base that settled the region (are English tying joints common?). And what about the amount of forest cover both past and present? Was/is it plentiful or was lumber typically imported?

I think mail-order barns were typically shipped by rail in the early 20th century. Therefore I'd think these barns would be found in fairly close proximity to railroad depots.

Don
I am now retracting what I said before about there being 1/3 to 1/2 Gambrel roof barns. After some thought and closer looking I'd have to say only 10 percent are Gambrel roof and majority being varying pitched Gable roofs.

I copied this from Google Wikipedia: (Upper Canada/Southern Ontario)
During the early 1830s, the population increased more than 10% of its total each year. In the 1820s many German-speaking Mennonite immigrants came to the Grand River region of Upper Canada from Pennsylvania, they were joined as well by many German speaking Amish immigrants. This region was sometimes called "Little Pennsylvania", however this term is no longer used today. Many of their descendants continue to speak a form of German called Pennsylvania German.

Some other research suggests Ontario/Upper Canada began to settle shortly after the British defeated the French in the 1780s however the area that I live in (South Western Ontario) was likely not populated too much until after "The war of 1812" part of which took place just down the road from me at "The battle of Longwoods".
The farm just up the road from me has the year engraved on the brick house. 1830 (I think)

If you go to Quebec you are going to find a much older history. The french arrived there in the early 1600s.

Today's history lesson

Thane

We finished up hunting this morning as we harvested our limit and all wanted to go home early.

Here are some pictures of the barn where we stay every year.



This is the Tie Beam brace I spoke of earlier.
There is a bow in the top plate as a result of the roof pushing out. You can see where the half-dovetail has pulled out at both ends.
Not sure why they did this.



Here is where an addition was attached.



Here is the same brace in the newer part.
You can see that they never used the dovetail joint on this end.





There is no mid-span beam in this barn roof which is a slight Gambrel.
The lean-to addition was added in the mid. sixties.