Georgian Bay (French: Baie Georgienne) is a large bay of Lake Huron in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To its northwest is the North Channel.

Georgian Bay is surrounded by (listed clockwise) the districts of Manitoulin, Sudbury, Parry Sound and Muskoka, as well as the more populous counties of Simcoe, Grey and Bruce. The Main Channel separates the Bruce Peninsula from Manitoulin Island and connects Georgian Bay to the rest of Lake Huron. The North Channel, located between Manitoulin Island and the Sudbury District, west of Killarney, was once a popular route for steamships and is now used by a variety of pleasure craft to travel to and from Georgian Bay.

The shores and waterways of the Georgian Bay are the traditional domain of the Anishinaabeg First Nations peoples to the north and Huron-Petun (Wyandot) to the south. The bay was thus a major Algonquian-Iroquoian trade route.

Wyandot legend tells of a god called Kitchikewana, who was large enough to guard the whole of Georgian Bay. Kitchikewana was known for his great temper, and his tribe decided the best way to calm him was with a wife. They held a grand celebration, and many women came. Kitchikewana met a woman named Wanakita here. He decided that this was the woman he wanted to marry and started planning the wedding immediately after she left. But when invited back, she told Kitchikewana she was already engaged. Enraged, Kitchikewana destroyed all the decorations, running to one end of Beausoleil Island and grabbing a giant ball of earth. Running to the other end, he tossed it into the Great Lakes. Thus, the 30,000 Islands were created. The indentations left behind by his fingers form the five bays of Georgian Bay: Midland Bay, Penetang Bay, Hog Bay, Sturgeon Bay, and Matchedash Bay. He then sleeps and sleeps there still as Giant's Tomb Island.

The town of Penetanguishene now has a giant statue of Kitchikewana on its main street.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Bay#Etymology

Set in New France in 1634 (in the period of conflicts known as the Beaver Wars), the film begins in the settlement that will one day become Quebec City. Jesuit missionaries are trying to encourage the local Algonquin Indians to embrace Christianity, with thus far only limited results. Samuel de Champlain, the settlement's founder, sends Father LaForgue, a young Jesuit priest, to found a Catholic mission in a distant Huron village. With winter approaching, the journey will be difficult and cover as much as 1500 miles (2414 kilometres).

LaForgue is accompanied on his journey by a non-Jesuit assistant, Daniel, and a group of Algonquin Indians whom Champlain has charged with guiding him to the Huron village. This group includes Chomina – an older, experienced traveller with clairvoyant dreams; his wife; and Annuka, their daughter. As they journey across the lakes and forests, Daniel and Annuka fall in love with the discomfort of the celibate LaForgue.

The group meets with a band of Montagnais, First Nations people who have never met Frenchmen. The Montagnais shaman, Mestigoit, is suspicious (and implicitly jealous) of LaForgue's influence over the Algonquins. He accuses him of being a demon. He encourages Chomina and the other Algonquins to abandon the two Frenchmen and travel to a winter hunting lodge instead. This they do, paddling away from the Frenchmen. LaForgue accepts his fate, but Daniel is determined to stay with Annuka and follows the Indians as they march across the forest. When one Indian tries to shoot Daniel, Chomina is consumed by guilt for betraying Champlain's trust. He and a few other members of the Algonquin tribe return with Daniel to try to find LaForgue.

As they recover LaForgue, a party of Mohawk Iroquois attack them, killing most of the Algonquin, including Chomina's wife, and taking the rest captive. They are taken to an Iroquois fortress, where they are forced to run the gauntlet, watch Chomina's young son be killed, and are told they will be slowly tortured to death the next day. That night Annuka seduces their guard, allowing him to engage in coitus with her. When this distracts him, she strikes him with a caribou hoof, rendering him unconscious and allowing them to escape. Chomina, dying of a wound from his capture, sees a small grove he has dreamed of many times before and realizes it is where he is destined to die. LaForgue tries, unsuccessfully, to persuade Chomina to embrace Christ before he dies. As Chomina freezes to death in the snow, he sees She-Manitou appearing to him.

As the weather grows colder, Annuka and Daniel take LaForgue to the outskirts of the Huron settlement but leave him to enter it alone because Chomina had dreamed that this must happen. LaForgue finds all but one French inhabitant dead, murdered by the Hurons, who blamed them for a smallpox epidemic. The leader of the last survivors tells LaForgue that the Hurons are dying, and he should offer to save them by baptizing them. LaForgue confronts the Hurons.

When their leader asks LaForgue if he loves them, LaForgue thinks of the faces of all the Indians he has met on his journey and answers, "Yes." The leader then asks him to baptize them, and the Hurons receive his baptism. The film ends with a golden sunrise. An intertitle states that fifteen years later, the Hurons, having accepted Christianity, were routed and killed by their enemies, the Iroquois; the Jesuit mission to the Hurons was abandoned, and the Jesuits returned to Quebec.

Bruce Peninsula & Tobermory

The Bruce Peninsula is a peninsula in Ontario, Canada that divides the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron from the lake's central basin. The peninsula extends roughly northwestwards from the rest of Southwestern Ontario, pointing towards Manitoulin Island, with which it forms the broadest strait, joining Georgian Bay to the rest of Lake Huron. The Bruce Peninsula contains part of the geological formation known as the Niagara Escarpment.

The peninsula is a popular tourist destination for camping, hiking and fishing, with two national parks (Bruce Peninsula National Park and Fathom Five National Marine Park), more than half a dozen nature reserves, and the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory. The Bruce Trail runs through the region to its northern terminus in Tobermory. It is officially part of Bruce County, named after James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin (Lord Elgin), Governor General of Canada.

The Bruce Peninsula is a crucial area for both plant and animal wildlife. Part of the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve, the peninsula has the largest remaining forest and natural habitat area in Southern Ontario. It is home to some of the oldest trees in eastern North America. An essential flyway for migrating birds, the peninsula is a habitat for various animals, including black bears, massasauga rattlesnakes, and barred owls.

Until the mid-19th century, the area known as the Bruce Peninsula was a territory controlled by the Saugeen Ojibway Nations. The nations included the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation and Saugeen First Nation. Historical and archaeological evidence from the area concludes that at the time of first contact with Europeans, the peninsula was inhabited by the Odawa people, from whom many local native people are descended. Oral history from Saugeen and Nawash suggests their ancestors have been here as early as 7500 years ago. The area of Hope Bay is known to natives as Nochemoweniing or Place of Healing. 

In 1836 the Saugeen Ojibway signed a treaty with Sir Francis Bond Head to cede lands south of the peninsula to the Canadian government in exchange for learning agriculture, proper housing, assistance in becoming "civilized," and permanent protection of the peninsula. In 1854, the Saugeen Ojibway agreed to sign another treaty, this time for the peninsula itself. In 1994, after decades of increasing First Nations activism, the Saugeen Ojibway filed a suit for a land claim for part of their traditional territory; they claimed breach of trust by the Crown in failing to meet its treaty obligations to protect Aboriginal lands. The claim seeks the return of lands still held by the Crown and financial compensation for other lands. This claim is still active.

European settlement began on the peninsula in the mid-19th century despite its poor potential for agricultural development. Attracted by the rich fisheries and lush forest, settlers found the land known then as the "Indian or Saugeen Peninsula" to be irresistible. In 1881, settlers built the first sawmill on the peninsula in Tobermory. In less than 20 years, most valuable timber was gone, and timber industry jobs declined. Fuelled by the waste left behind by the rapid logging and land clearances, intense forest fires sprang up around the peninsula in 1908, burning large swaths of land. By the mid-1920s, the formerly abundant forests of the peninsula were nearly barren. When the lamprey eel was accidentally introduced to the Great Lakes in 1932, the devastation of the fish supply made the peninsula less attractive; many left when fish stocks became depleted. The peninsula underwent a steady decline in population until the 1970s. In the late 20th century, the peninsula started to attract a new kind of resident: the cottager. Today, seasonal residents outnumber permanent residents, especially in the summer.

Saugeen First Nation is an Ojibwa First Nation located along the Saugeen River and the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada. The original territory included all of the Saugeen River watershed and all of the Bruce Peninsula.

Organized in the mid-1970s, during a period of increased political activism, Saugeen First Nation declared itself the primary 'political successor apparent' to the historic Chippewas of Saugeen Ojibway Territory, who had occupied this territory and made treaties with the Crown. However, along with the Saugeen First Nation, the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation claims to be the 'political successor apparent' to the Chippewa of Saugeen Ojibway Territory. Under the Saugeen Tract Agreement, the portion south of Owen Sound was ceded to the Crown, with reserves later established on the Bruce Peninsula.

The claims for land and payment of rent on lands discussed in early treaties are significant. The Saugeen is now determined to establish its claim to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay waters and any Crown Land remaining on the peninsula. "The two First Nations are claiming aboriginal title to the lands under the water covering an area of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay from south of Goderich, west to the international border and north to the mid-point between the tip of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island; then east to the mid-point of Georgian Bay and south to the southernmost point of Nottawasaga Bay. A trial to establish the ownership and resolve disputes over the treaties began in 2019.

Bruce Peninsula May 31st 2008

Tobermory Ferry to Manitoulin Island

Manitoulin Island