Related Link House Where Dionne Quintuplets Were Born Will Stay in North Bay

The tiny log house alongside the Trans-Canada Highway is easy to miss among the strip malls, fast-food outlets and car dealers. But 83 years ago, it was the eye of a publicity maelstrom because of a one-in-a-billion event: the birth of five identical baby girls.

The Dionne quintuplets — the first known to survive — were a flash of miraculous happy news in the depths of the Great Depression. Journalists descended on North Bay, Ontario, to make them the most famous babies on earth. They were front-page news around the world and filled newsreels.

The province of Ontario swooped in and took them from their parents, declaring that they had to be protected from exploitation. Then it exhibited the children three times a day in a human zoo called Quintland, to be raised as a sort of science experiment. Three million visitors came in the 1930s.

Now, the city they put on the map is poised to deal the Dionnes what they say is yet another insult, by getting rid of their house. ...