We recently took a family trip by car from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to our home in Ottawa. At first, I was nervous that the trip would be punctuated by continuous demands of “Are we there yet?” and hour after hour of uninspiring scenery.
By Sheri Minardi
Whitefish Island is a rich cultural site in downtown Sault Ste. Marie.
A very rich cultural island teaming with history, flora and fauna lies within Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario just below the International Bridge with the St. Mary’s rapids flowing through it. This island is Whitefish Island that is a short walk across the Sault Ste. Marie Locks. It is an historical site, formed more than 2,000 years ago as an Indigenous settlement. Trading was done on the island and was a major source of food due to the abundance of fish. In 1997, the island was returned to the Batchawana Band, who maintain the island today.
The Attikamek & Whitefish Island Trails are a wonderful area to explore. At the crossing to the island, you cross and large bridge that leads to the Batchewana Band’s sign welcoming you to the island.
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By Stephen Johnson
Trains, Trails, and Ancient Art
Driving cross-country and thinking of skipping Ontario? Here’s why you shouldn’t. This family found some fascinating roads into Canada’s past, and its rich natural beauty.
We recently took a family trip by car from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to our home in Ottawa. At first, I was nervous that the trip would be punctuated by continuous demands of “Are we there yet?” and hour after hour of uninspiring scenery.
I could not have been more wrong. The scenery all along the route was quite beautiful. Things got jaw-droppingly gorgeous once we hit Rossport, Ontario. We were treated to kilometre after kilometre of landscapes that were straight out of a Group of Seven painting. Still more beauty awaited us in the Sault Ste. Marie area.
A sheer 15-story-high cliff soars above me, its crystalline granite face adorned with the most important, and most mysterious, public work of art in Canada. The silhouette of a creature at eye level peers back out. It doesn’t have eyes, but it sees me. Its eternal head is cocked to the side in curiosity, as though trying to make out whatever it is that anyone gazing upon it is also trying to fathom. A red ochre chimera, it has large feline paws, quizzical bullhorns, and the body of a dragon, with sharp spines ridging its back and tail.
Meet Mishipeshu: the Great Lynx, the Underwater Wildcat, the Fabulous Night Panther. This pictograph is an enigma that has stood here for eons. And Mishipeshu isn’t alone; there are over a hundred other images at Agawa Rock, a sacred lakeside site located in Lake Superior Provincial Park, around 150 km north of Sault Ste. Marie.
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