The Cheese Factory

Was there ever such a thing as a Cheese Factory on the road that ran along the Vermillion River ?

Charles and the Vermillion River Cheese Factory...

If my information is correct then there was a cheese factory in the vicinity of Errington mine. That cheese factory was about a half mile away from the Vermillion river and above the Stobie Falls. If my map is correct then the Vermillion river cheese factory was located on the edge of Charles and Regina Masse Brosseau's farm.


This map of the area has sent me on many a wild goose chases. This cheese factory story is just one of them.

I really have no other information about the Vermillion cheese factory other than that it seems to have operated for a decade or more.

It would be logical to think that as long as there was a market for cheese in the area then there would have been a reason to keep the cheese factory open for business. The population in the area grew dramatically in the 1920's as Bradley, Errington and Treadwell Yukon Mining set up the mining village of Platinum. The boom brought more than 300 people to the area and Charles farm was perfectly located to take advantage of this. However, when Treadwell closed shop in 1931-32 then all would have been lost to a cheese factory. Charles Brosseau and Regina Masse Brosseau's farm was in the sixth concession of Creighton township on the north half of lot 11. The village of Platinum and the mill were on lot 10, 9, 8.....

All of that is very sketchy at best. Was Charles Brosseau even alive in 1932. We know that his brother Toussaint had died in 1907 and his other brother Leandre went and died in 1933. Charles was likely a widower living alone in the early 1920's if the 1921 census is accurate.

It isn't even certain whether or not he was the operator of this cheese factory. So we leave it that for now.

We know that these people were originally from Prescott and Vaudreuil counties which were rich in farmland and well versed in the art of cheese making. 

Did they bring the art of cheese making with them to what would become the cheese factory near Vermillion river ?

What exactly was a cheese factory in the early 1900's.  

Most of the cheese factories were small time operations located on a small parcel of land with only a few employees capable of churning out many pounds of cheese every day.

How much cheese ? Probably as much as he could produce with whatever amount of milk he had. Or as much as he could find buyers for.

The cheese maker needed milk as a base ingredient. When the cheese maker decided to go commercial with a factory then the amount of milk he needed grew exponentially. The cheese factory then needed to buy milk from the local farms.

What happened to the cheese factory ?

Watch this video and you will see that when industrial progress caught up to the world of the small cheese maker most of them ended up being put out of business by the co-ops who bought up all of the supply of milk in their corporation type factories. The Cheese Factory story thus ends the same way as any other story which is based on the struggle for survival between the little guy and the big players.