OLI P’ HANT AN D I TS IS LAN D S 0 LAK E H ! R ON HI STOR I C AL AN D D ESC R I P TI ! E S KETC H ES W R I TTEN AND D ESI G NED B Y I R ENE MONK MAN AN D R OY FLEMI NG C ANAD A. C O P YR I G HT. I 9l2 P ! B LI S H ED B Y TH E OJ I B W AY C R AFTS 2 6 ST J OS P H S R OR O O C D . E T EET, T NT , ANA A O! R OWN B R OAD LAKE. Wr itt n ! m{b e la te Tll amas Mac u e efl or the H u r on Sz na l ov r six t a r s a o . e O f g , e y y e g “ “ mmens a e ! I ra I e , bright l k t ce in thee I cannot feel as I have felt , emb e An l m of the mighty ocean , When life with hope and fire was teeming , And in thy restless waves I see Nor kneel as I have often knelt ’ fiet e re s ete na ’ r l law of motion ! At beauty s shrine , devoutly dreaming ; And fancy sees the Enron chiei Some younger hand must strike the strings i ’ Of the d m past kneel to implore thee To tell of Enron s awful grandeur , With Indian awe , he seeks relief , Eer smooth and moonlight slumberings In pouring homage out before thee ; H er tempest voice loud as thunder ; And I , too , feel my reverence wake , Some loftier lyre than mine must wake ” When gaz ing on our own broad lake ! To sing our own broad gleaming lake ! N 4 H I STO R I C AL S K ETC H ES m ER Y few of the peo ple who now spend their summers at the cottages scattered along the mainland and islands of Oliphant , and enjoy them “ " h h of selves o t e waters the immense bright lake , realiz e that these same regions , not so many years ago , presented scenes of a very different the nature , and were homes of races , which are now almost gone ! Whether or not the intrepid , pioneer explorer of Canada , Samuel de Champlain , in his journey of long ago up the Ottawa River , touched on “ ” the eastern shores of the Mer douce des Hurons , no one can now with a certainty say . Or whether the unfortunate yet und unted La Salle , when he made his voyage up Lac Huron in the Griffin , thought of taking shelter at the Islands , on his starboard , from the great storm that - over took him , the historian Father Hennepin does not record . But it is within the limits of the possible f that even yet some day , the wreck of the long lost vessel , with her monster gri fin p row , may be found hidden beneath the sands of our own shores , where so many known wrecks have since sunk into oblivion , and if such should be , we would then surely know that our shores were visited , though in misfortune , by the very early explorers of our country . I N I A C ! P ATI ON f Sau een D N O C Of the days o Indian occupation of the g Peninsula and its Islands , Time and Tradition have left us only a few traces . The first tribe known to have inhabited the region was f “ a band o the Algonquins called the Ottawas , who were here in the sixteenth century , doubtless the Cheveux ” - z u . releve (straight p hair) , mentioned by Champlain Later this tribe gave way to a band of the Ojibway Indians from the Lake Superior district ; and at the same time , at least one tribe of Hurons lived on the " f shore in the beautiful spot known as Red Bay . “In the beginning o the seventeenth century the two tribes fl f came into con ict with each other and in a bloody battle on the shore o this bay , the Hurons killed so many of the Ojibways that their blood colored the water a deep red from whence came the name . 1 Next in turn , in 648 , came the fierce warring tribe of Iroquois , whose ambition it was to possess the w . r hole lower valley of les Grands Lacs The Hurons and Iroquois bore each othe a deadly hatred , and t h e “ - " s was . truggle between the two tribes most bitter It was then that the blood thirsty Mohawk chief, as Pauline Johnson describes , was “ n' Here in the hated Enro s vicious clutch , " That even captive he disdains to t ouch . The in Hurons however proved the weaker in the conflict , and they were completely exterminated this region ; the Iroquois then took possession of a large part of the land . Then began the attacks of these Iroquois upon the Ojibways to the south along the shore as far as the “ " S n so Co wa able and Sa g n Rivers . The Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation , by George p y , relates - that at this time two forces of Ojibways , assisted by allies from Penetanguishene , attacked the Iroquois at the mouth of the Saugeen River and the fierce battle which ensued ended in the total rout of the Iroquois . Those of them who w ere not killed , were driven out of the country to the region south of Lake Erie . The v a l ictorious Ojibways then settled down to live quiet and pe cab e lives , only once taking part in a war , when ’ “ " Tecumseh s brother The Prophet. in 1812 led off a band of braves from this district to fight so nobly at of the side the Great Chief Tecumseh . “The population was augmented shortly after the Treaty of Chicago 1833 Chi ewa P ott awat amie a in , when some of the eleven hundred pp , Ottawa , and Indi ns who migrated from ! . Wisconsin to pper Canada , settled in the Saugeen and Sable lands MANITOWANING TREATY So far the white man had little to do in the history of the region . The B ritish had taken possession of Canada in 1760; ! pper Canada was being opened for settlement ; but it was not until 1836 that any direct attempt was made by the Government to take possession of the Saugeen Peninsula . {II t was in August of that year at Manitowaning , that Sir Francis Bond Head , the Governor of Sau een ! pper Canada , negotiated a treaty with the Ojibway Indians of Manitoulin Island and the g Penin r B sula , for the sale of thei land to the Crown . y this Manitowaning Treaty the territory of Manitoulin ‘ 4 ’ 1 MEET I NG OF TH E ED AN D W H I T A 4 B E B C ES. y» O l bw a C hi f Ad mira H W B ‘ l . a fi ld R . N j y e , . y e . Show in t he R acial C hara r i i 1795-18 5 S r o r ct st cs . 8 u v f Lak H r g e , ey o e u on . “ ’ Sau een l s Island , the g Peninsula , and their adjacent islands (the whole area being ater known as ! ueen " B ush ) was given over to the government of ! pper Canada . In return for these lands the Indians were “ ” 1250 . to to receive the sum of £ annually , as long as water ran and g rass grew green We have therefore thank Sir Francis Bond Head for the acquisition of these extensive Indian lands . OLIPHANT TREATY Soon after the Man it owaning Treaty , the government appointed Laurence Oliphant , the well known author , traveller , and private secretary of Lord Elgin , as Superintendent General of Afiair Indian s . It was through his efforts that in 1854 the Oliphant Treaty was negotiated and signed at Sau een g , allowing the government to survey and sell the lands gained by the Manitowaning Treaty . Pre n 184 vio s to this in 7 some of the lands had been surveyed and opened for settlement , but it was not until 1855 the year , at the time of the Rankin Survey , that the townships of Amabel and Albemarle , and the - e town plot of Oliphant , were laid out . The Saugeen Fishing Islands were formally given ov r to the Crown 1885 in , and were surveyed shortly after . The lowering of the water of Lake Huron , however , caused so many changes in the land that a new survey was ordered in 1899 and completed in 1900. This was known e t o . as the James Warren Survey . After this second survey of the Islands most of them w re sold the public HYDROGRAPHIC HISTORY Of the early maps of Lake Huron and the other lakes the better l ’ ’ ’ 16 2 1 6 Ca t ain . known are Champlain s of 3 , Sanson s of 656, and Pere Hennepin s ot 1 83 . {I p W F Owen , R . N . , sailed up the Lake in 1815 ; on his map he has shown the Islands as well as the old portage from the ’ “ Col o ” B ut Islands to p y s Bay by way of a lake reported to exist by the Indians (Boat Lake) . ( it remained a . t r . field . N . for the great Lieutenant (af e w rds Admiral) H W B ay , R , and his assistant Midshipman P E t o n Collins , (known the I dians as Big and Little Chief) , to make the first regular hydrographic survey of 1 2 2 - - Lake Huron .