Georgian Bay Outer Archipelago

The outer archipelago of Georgian Bay is a place few Canadians have heard of, and far fewer have set foot upon. Here, some five kilometres from shore, well beyond the better known 30,000 Islands, the last appendages of the Niagara Escarpment reach almost cautiously above the waves for a final glimpse of the sun before ducking below the crystal-clear waters for good.Thousands of years ago, nature carved a chapter of its history here in glacial striations along the white and pink rock it squeezed and folded into the Mink and McCoy Islands. In this low-lying but diverse ecosystem, ancient lichen grows at the feet of windswept pines on the low-lying islets where bald eagles and artic tern nest and play. Modern-day paddlers have also discovered this unique geography as a place to play, though humankind has historically treated it differently. The area is inextricably tied to the land’s Indigenous people. The Huron-Wendat youth are said to have visited the outer archipelago on vision quests, while Big McCoy Island is the site of an ancient Ojibway burial site. By the 1800s, Europeans had arrived in earnest, setting up small villages around many fur trade posts and turning to the bay’s natural resources for further trade. Commercial fishing and a burgeoning lumber industry spurred the need for railroads and shipyards to transport goods; ice from the bay was sent to Toronto for use in refrigeration. The islands’ utility was maximized, but its essence rarely captured.