Barryvale, a small lakeside settlement on the eastern shores of Calabogie Lake within Greater Madawaska, began its story in the 1840s as a clearing for timber cruisers and railway workers. Its name honors James Barry — an Irish-born timber cruiser hired in the early 1840s, whose shanty and surveying work near Calabogie Lake became known locally as “Barry’s Camp,” later evolving into the name Barryvale.

By the early 1880s, the Kingston & Pembroke Railway reached the area, establishing a station named Barryvale in 1883. That railway spur prompted further settlement and a shift from temporary camps to permanent homesteads, driven by railway Easements and land grants recorded in the 1860s–70s colonial cadastral surveys.

The railway embankment crossing Calabogie Lake — evident today as the K&P Rail Trail — still acts as a clear cadastral and physical corridor through Barryvale. Early Crown surveys, post-railway subdivisions, and the later recreational conversion of rail lands form a layered parcel fabric. Many current lot lines align with the old station footprint and railway easement, intersecting concession grids from the 19th century.

From a professional land surveyor’s perspective, Barryvale offers a concise yet illustrative case of Ontario’s rural cadastral evolution: a logging camp turned railway service point, with its station anchoring parcel layouts and easements. Surveying here involves tracing early Crown lot concessions, railway corridor easements, and modern conversions — making Barryvale a precise example of how transport infrastructure reshapes land ownership and legal descriptions over time.