Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Huronia


We drove north to Midland Ontario last weekend to enjoy the fall colours.

Midland sits on the shores of Georgian Bay, an area sometimes called Huronia. It was the ancestral home of the Huron people who called themselves Wendot. Huron was a french word meaning ruffian.

When Jesuit missionaries arrived in 1639 their lives changed forever, and not in a good way. The french missionaries brought deadly diseases and tribal division through religious conversion. The Jesuit settlement only lasted 10 years but that was enough to weaken the Wendot and to leave them vulnerable to their enemy the Iroquois.
Today the settlement has been recreated as Saint-Marie among the Hurons, and is worth a visit.
Nearby is the Wye Marsh, a large and significant wetland where trumpeter swans have been reintroduced. 





Take a walk along the boardwalk and you might just see an otter looking back at you!













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