The last spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) track between Montreal and Winnipeg was driven in west of Jackfish on May 16, 1885. Laying one particular mile of railway in this area is said to have cost $700,000. With its location as a railway siding, along a beach area, amongst Lake Superior's otherwise rocky shoreline, Jackfish became a port of commercial fishing. Fish were caught here and packed in ice and loaded aboard trains bound for markets in Toronto and Montreal. In the 1930s A lumber company here sent logs by ship for use at pulp mills in the United States.