The Thousand Islands Before European Contact
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St. Lawrence Islands National Park “A natural place of recreation and healthful resort” 1894 to 1980 By Ellen Manchee Ontario Service Centre Parks Canada January 2004 Table of Contents I Introduction 1 II. The Thousand Islands to 1894 2 III. The Beginning of St. Lawrence Islands National Park 1894-1904 8 IV. St. Lawrence Islands National Park is Established 1904 23 V. The Park 1904 to 1950 27 VI. The Park 1954 to 1980 40 VII. Conclusion 92 VIII Suggestions for Further study and analysis 94 Bibliography 96 Appendices Appendix 1 Selected travelers accounts of the 1000 Islands 1797 to 1910 98 Appendix 2 Orders in Council 114 Appendix 3 Report on natural resources present on Park Islands [late 1970s] 120 Appendix 4 Inventory of reports held in SLINP Archives to 2001 124 Appendix 5 Description of SLINP from National Parks Act with amendments to 2003 131 Appendix 6 Staff synopsis 136 Appendix 7 Various Pieces written by Alf MacDonald about SLINP 139 Appendix 8 SLINPAC Recommendations 148 Figures Figure 1 Beaurivage Island circa 1880 Figure 2 Aubrey Island circa 1880 Figure 3 Mallorytown Landing from mainland circa 1910 Figure 4 Plan of Dominion Park at Grenadier Island 1905 Figure 5 Notice posted on islands in 1879 Figure 6 Picnic Party in the Thousand islands circa 1900 Figure 7 Aubrey Island 1903 Figure 8 Canadian Span Thousand Islands International Bridge ca. 1935 Figure 9 Plan of Park Islands circa 1961 Figure 10 Mallorytown Landing looking east along river front June 29, 1953 Figure 11 Manllorytown Landing looking east across marsh June 29, 1953 Figure 12 Mallorytown Landing looking south toward River June 29, 1953 Figure 13 Plan for Development of Mallorytown Landing 1953 Figure 14 Plan of Burnt or Aubrey Island 1916 Figure 15 Aubrey Island 1917 lighthouse reserve. Figure 16 Cedar Island 1930 Figure 17 Cedar Island 1930 Figure 18 Cedar Island 1930 Figure 19 Pavilion Broder Island circa 1950 Figure 20 Bathhouse Broder Island circa 1950 Figure 21 Bathhouse on Beaurivage Island 1959 Figure 22 Camping on Beaurivage Island 1959 Figure 23 East Dock of Beaurivage Island 1959 Figure 24 Dock on Beaurivage Island 1964 Figure 25 Picnicking on Beaurivage Island 1960 Figure 26 Red Horse Light from Beaurivage Island 1963 Figure 27 Swings on Beaurivage Island 1958 Figure 28 Adelaide Island – sketch 1963. Figure 29 Aubrey Island – 1963. Figure 30 Beau Rivage Island – sketch 1963 Figure 31 Camelot Island - sketch 1963. Figure 32 Endymion Island – sketch 1963 Figure 33 Gordon Island – sketch 1963 Figure 34 West End of Grenadier Island – sketch 1963 Figure 35 Mermaid Island –1963 Figure 36 Stovin Island – sketch 1963. Figure 3 NA, C-147805 Milton Island 1966 Figure 37 Milton Island 1966 Figure 38 Milton Island 1966 Figure 39 Pamphlet of interpretive activities summer 1974. Figure 40 Pamphlet of interpretive activities summer 1975 I Introduction For many years of its life, St. Lawrence Islands National Park (SLINP) was described in Parks Canada pamphlets as the smallest Canadian National Park. While it is a small jewel in the system, it has much more interesting claims to fame. SLINP was the first national park established in eastern Canada, responding to complaints about the sale of islands to private owners. These complaints came from all over Ontario, but the local voice was a strong component. Local people couched their interest in the preservation of a public recreational space, which the Thousand Islands had provided for them from the middle of the 19th century. Ideas of the natural world as a respite from the hurly burly of the city helped to form their arguments. The Thousand Islands offered the best of both the new ideas about retreating to the woods for the recreation of energy and restoration of the spirit, and the traditional rest cures near water. One could go both to the woods and to the shore on these islands. As well as its more than 100 years history as a public recreation space, once SLINP became a park, its administration was not typical of national parks in other parts of Canada. The first warden was not appointed to SLINP until 1954, and the park did not have it‟s own superintendent until the mid 1960s. For half of its life the park islands and mainland were managed as discrete, separate parks, each maintained by a caretaker. Garbage was removed, visitors were welcomed, reports were made to National Office in Ottawa, and repairs made to island structures by the caretaker, sometimes with occasional labour hired for the purpose. Specific documentation is scarce about these men, however each individual island must have had its own distinctive character. In 1954, the first warden was appointed to SLINP. For the next 30 year, the park developed and changed far more than it had in the first 50 years of its life. The first long term planning was started for the park in the early 1960s. Facilities were added and subsequently removed from park islands as philosophies changed. New staff were hired and became increasingly specialized as the years went by. As well, in this period, there appears to be a change in the users of the park. Up until and through the 1950s, camping and picnicking was the main use, and transportation to the islands would be in either small boats, which stayed at the dock, or large commercial boats, which stopped at the islands only to drop people off. By the mid 1960s, private boats were growing in size and their owners were not interested in camping on the islands, but rather mooring at the dock and staying on their boats. The only thing that seems to have stayed the same is the love of the river that users report. The following is a history of the park from before it‟s formal establishment until the late 1970s. II. The Thousand Islands to 1894 Before the coming of Europeans to North America, this area was occupied seasonally by Iroquois peoples and their ancestors. By 1794, when Jay‟s treaty established the boundary between the United States and Canada, the islands and mainland of the Thousand Island region were claimed by two groups. In 1856, the Indian Department chose to recognize the Mississaugas of Alnwick as owners.1 The mainland had long been allocated to settlers, mainly United Empire Loyalists, but the islands had been overlooked. They were not, however, idle. The larger islands were settled by farmers, some of whom paid rent to the Mississauga. The Thousand Islands were, by the beginning of the 19th century, coming to be well known as a destination for travelers to North America. Until late in the century travel into Canada was most efficiently and quickly done by water, and the main water route to the west was the St. Lawrence River. Some travelers were moved to write about their trip. “While the occasional traveller was unimpressed with the Thousand Islands, most were moved by the natural beauty of the Thousand Islands landscape. This was especially true during the fall when autumn colours provided a colourful backdrop to the Islands. Traveller after traveller described the scenery of the Thousand Islands in glowing terms. Panegyrical descriptions portrayed the Islands as a natural spectacle unparalleled in its beauty, unrivalled in its form, and unmatched in its immensity.” 2 [See Appendix 1 for excerpts from some of these descriptions.] By the middle of the 19th century, the Mississauga Indians had been displaced from the area and in 1856 had ceded their right to the Canadian islands to the government of Canada.3 These islands were to be held in trust by the Government, eventually to be disposed of to the credit of the Mississauga people. Portions of the larger islands Grenadier, LaRoux and Club were sold to the occupants in the years 1876-77. These occupants were people who had settled on the islands and were farming them, under informal agreements with the Mississauga. Some families claimed to have been on the islands for as many as 70 years.4 As well, from 1874 to 1878 inclusive nine islands were sold. In 1880, thirteen islands were auctioned for lease, but all except one of these leases were cancelled for non-payment. On June 1st , 1883, fifteen island in the vicinity of Brockville were leased for twenty years to the Municipal Corporation of Brockville at a yearly rental of $134. In 1883 and 1884, more auctions were held, but all but six of the leases were cancelled. z For a more full description of the archaeological records and of the events leading to the surrender of land by the Mississaugas of Alnwick see Bates A Community Vanished; Wright, J. V. Ontario Prehistory. 2 Marshall, J. p. 4 3 Deed of Surrender dated 19 June 1856 the Mississaguas of Alnwick conveyed to the Crown in trust to be sold or other wise disposed of to the best advantage for the benefit of themselves and their descendants the Islands situated in the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario, Wellers Bay and in the River St. Lawrence. 4 Parks Canada Ontario Service Centre History archives, NP-BX04.021 Christina Bates‟ binder of notes for Grenadier Island. As early as 1872, the Mississauga band sent a petition to the Government asking that the islands be sold and the money deposited to their credit. Indian Agent Thackeray reported at that time that they “repeatedly ask me when I visit them, about the sale of these Islands. I say to them it is seldom there in an application to purchase, for generally islands are not as saleable as farms on the mainland.”5 The Mississauga band continued to pressure the government to dispose of the islands until the turn of the century.