Thunder Bay The Sleeping Giant

The Sleeping Giant - Nanabijou

Visible from many places in Thunder Bay, the Sleeping Giant is the city's most well-known natural wonder. The landmass itself is an Ontario Park with hundreds of kilometres of hiking trails and campsites to enjoy.

Thousands of locals and visitors alike marvel at the wonder of the Sleeping Giant each year, but what is the legend surrounding this Giant? 

The legend goes as follows...

Standing on the shores of Thunder Bay at the head of the great Lake Superior, one can perceive, on looking out across the waters of Thunder Bay, a great land formation situated directly in the mouth of the Bay.

It requires no imagination whatever to see that this form resembles the sleeping body of a giant, arms folded across his massive chest as in the majesty of death.

Mystery and legend surround the origin of this strange phenomenon of nature and down through the ages the following story seems to have survived.

On an island just outside Thunder Bay, now known as "Isle Royale," once lived a great tribe of Ojibway Natives.

Because of their loyalty to their Gods, and their peaceful and industrious mode of living, Nanabijou, the Spirit of the Deep Sea Water, decided to reward them.

One day he called their Chief to his great Thunder Temple on the mountain and warned him that if he told the secret to the white man, that he, Nanabijou would be turned to stone and the Ojibway tribe perish.

The Chief gave his promise, and Nanabijou told him of the rich silver mine, now known as "Silver Islet." The Great Spirit told him to go to the highest point on Thunder Cape, and here he would find the entrance to a tunnel that would lead him to the centre of the mine.

Apparently the Chief and his people found the mine, for the Ojibway became famous for their beautiful silver ornaments. So beautiful indeed were they, that the Sioux warriors on seeing them upon their wounded enemies, strove to wrest their secret from them.

However, torture and even death failed to make the gallant Ojibway divulge their secret and the Sioux chieftains had to devise another scheme to find the source of the Ojibway silver.

One day they summoned their most cunning scout to a pow-wow and a plan was formed. The scout was to enter the Ojibway camp disguised as one of them. This he did and in a few days succeeded in learning the secret of the island of silver.

Going to the mine at night he took several large pieces of the precious metal in order to prove to his chieftain that he had fulfilled his mission.

The scout however never returned to his camp, for on his way back he stopped at a white traders post to purchase some food. Having no furs or money with which to pay for the goods, he used a piece of the silver.

Upon seeing such a large piece of the gleaming metal, two white men sought to obtain the whereabouts of its source, in order to make themselves fabulously rich. After filling the Sioux scout with liquor they persuaded him to show them the way to the mine.

When almost in sight of "Silver Islet" a terrific storm broke over the Cape. The white men were drowned and the Native was found in a crazed condition floating aimlessly in his canoe, but the most extraordinary thing that had happened during the storm, was that where once was a wide opening to the bay, now lay what appeared to be a great sleeping figure of a man. The Great Spirit's warning had been fulfilled and he had been turned to stone.

On a little island at the foot of the Sleeping Giant, can still be seen the partly submerged shafts of what was once the richest silver mine in the northwest. White men have tried again and again to pump out the water that keeps flooding it from Lake Superior but without success. Is it still under the curse of Nanabijou, Spirit of the Deep Sea Water... perhaps... who can tell?

 There are numerous versions of the Legend of the Sleeping Giant and one is not necessarily more valid than another. This particular one was published in a booklet entitled Tales of The Tom Tom, written probably in the 1950s or 1960s, by Hubert Limbrick, a former Fort William City Councillor (1951-58 and '60-65).

Actual Ojibway legends are stories about Nanabijou printed in local 19th-century newspapers. These stories reportedly came directly from Ojibway elders interviewed at the time, but there's no way of verifying that today. The earliest dates from 1882, while another version dates from somewhat later. These versions are completely different from Limbrick's rather simplistic and fanciful one, and neither makes direct mention of the Sleeping Giant. They talk about how Nanabijou created the world, including the lakes, rivers and islands.

Limbrick's story seems to be connected with Silver Islet and, as such, must be of relatively recent origin as the mine was not discovered until the late 19th century.

Link
https://www.northernontario.travel


 

The McKenzie Marsh Aurora Ontario

 The McKenzie Marsh property has been sold. A large house was built large amount of trees were removed and the land was poisoned grass removed and wild life dissipated.  In May 2020 the large house was in flames. 

I was asking myself what is the history of this land? Hard to find information about the history of this piece of land.

Who is McKenzie? Who built this lake? What was here before? 1900, 1800, 1700, 1600?  Records were lost, paces were renamed, the history even the recent history is lost. Who was the initial recorded Owner of the McKenzie Marsh.

In this area a University Professor of U of T was digging and found an old Town. He had his doctorate thesis based on the discoveries on this area. All artifact dissipated. There are only 4 pictures of the findings in this area of Aurora.

The Aurora Site, also known as the "Old Fort," "Old Indian Fort," "Murphy Farm" or "Hill Fort" site, is a sixteenth-century Huron-Wendat ancestral village located on one of the headwater tributaries of the East Holland River on the north side of the Oak Ridges Moraine in present-day Whitchurch–Stouffville, approximately 30 kilometres north of Toronto. This Huron ancestral village was located on 3.4 hectares (8.4 acres) of land and the settlement was fortified with multiple rows of palisades. The community arrived ca. 1550, likely moving en masse from the so-called Mantle Site located nine kilometres to the south-east in what is today urban Stouffville. The Aurora/Old Fort site is located at the south-east corner of Kennedy Road and Vandorf Side Road, east of the hamlet of Vandorf in the town of Whitchurch–Stouffville. The Aurora site was occupied at the same time as the nearby Ratcliff site.^[2]
The Rouge River trail, used by the Huron and then later by the French to travel between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe / Georgian Bay, ran through the Aurora site.
Perhaps the busiest and best documented of these routes was that which followed the Humber River valley northward ... although another trail of equal importance and antiquity and used earlier than the former by the French, extended from the mouth of the Rouge River northward to the headwaters of the Little Rouge and over the drainage divide to the East Branch of the Holland River at Holland Landing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Site,_Wendat_(Huron)_Ancestral_Village


The Aurora/Old Fort site was completely excavated in 1947 and 1957 by the University of Toronto. The 1947 dig was the first student excavation by the university, and it was led by John Norman Emerson. Emerson's doctoral work was largely based on the excavations of the Aurora/Old Fort site. 

The lack of public records of the findings make me to assume that the University of Toronto is responsible for the destruction of the real History of the place.


The $20 million St. Johns Sideroad reconstruction project was officially completed on June 26, 2006. On this date local stakeholders, Town, Regional officials and staff attended the ceremony. The project was one of the most environmentally significant projects completed by York Region to date. It was a recipient of the Ontario Public Works Association’s 2006 Project of the Year in the environmental category and the American Public Works Association’s 2007 Transportation Project of the Year.


Aurora (2016 population 55,445) is a town in central York Region in the Greater Toronto Area, within the Golden Horseshoe of Southern Ontario, Canada. It is located north of the Town of Richmond Hill and is partially situated on the Oak Ridges Moraine. In the Canada 2016 Census, the municipal population of Aurora was the 95th largest in Canada, compared to 97th for the 2006 Census. Aurora has been ranked in the top 10 wealthiest towns in Canada.

Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe gave the order for Yonge Street to be extended to Holland Landing in 1793, the first step toward the establishment of a community where Aurora now stands. Yonge Street opened between 1794 and 1796. In 1795, the first house in Aurora was built at Yonge St and Catherine Av. The government began granting deeds to land in 1797. By 1801 there were fourteen homes.
In 1804, Richard Machell became the first merchant at the crossroads of Yonge and Wellington and the hamlet soon became known as Machell's Corners. Charles Doan was another early businessman at Machell's Corners and became the first postmaster and later the first reeve. The post office was originally known as "Whitchurch". As postmaster, he was influential in renaming the village Aurora, after the goddess Aurora from Roman mythology.^[7]:10[a] Machell proposed to rename the town "Match-Ville", ostensibly for the match factory in the town, but the name Aurora was more popular and ultimately chosen as the town's name. Flour and grist mills were built around 1827. With the coming of the railway in 1853, Aurora emerged as an important centre north of Toronto. The Fleury plough works foundry opened in 1859, making agricultural implements.
The community was first known as Machell's Corners and had only 100 residents in 1851. The population of Aurora in 1863 was 700, and by 1869 it had grown to 1200.
The settlement was incorporated as a village in 1863 with Charles Doan as the first reeve. Records from 1885 describe Aurora as the "largest village in the county" an "enterprising and stirring business community" with several factories and mills, five churches, a school house with 210 students, and two weekly newspapers. The population in 1881 was 1540. The population reached 2,107 by 1888.
 Total Area 49.85 km²

Aurora got its start with the opening of Yonge Street in 1796 by Governor John Graves Simcoe. The first settlers were refugees from the new United States of America: Loyalists, who had sided with the British Crown, and Quakers, who had sided with no one. In both cases, the newcomers proved to be both industrious pioneers and exceedingly loyal to their adoptive homeland.
Aurora’s big boost came when Richard Machell settled along the corners of Yonge and Wellington Street in 1804. He was soon joined by other settlers and soon, as was common in those days, a thriving hamlet sprung up around this busy crossroad. The community took the name, Machell’s Corners, in honour of its first settler.

In 1853, and to much excitement, the tracks of Ontario’s first railway arrived in the village. The railway provided a direct link to Toronto and encouraged growth in population and industry in Aurora. On the eve of the railway’s arrival, a mere 100 people lived in the village. By 1878, that number had risen to 1500. Aurora had become an important industrial town, home to two farming implement factories, three sawmills, two cabinet factories, and other business enterprises.

In a very real sense, the arrival of the railway heralded the dawn of a new age for the community. Sensing that, postmaster, Charles Doan, decided to rename the village Aurora, after the Greek goddess of the dawn. The new name became official on January 1, 1854.
 

William Lyon Mackenzie (March 12, 1795 – August 28, 1861) was a Scottish-born Canadian-American journalist and politician. His strong views on political equality and clean government drove him to outright rebellion in 1837 after a career as mayor of Toronto and in the colonial legislative assembly of Upper Canada (Ontario). He led the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion and during its bitter end he set up a small rebel enclave named "Republic of Canada," where he served as president December 13, 1837 to January 14, 1838. After a period of exile in the U.S., he returned to Canada and served as elected member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from 1851 to 1858. 

While Mackenzie was not a religious man himself; he remained a lifelong proponent of separation of church and state. 

William Lyon Mackenzie was born on March 12, 1795, in Scotland in the Dundee suburb Springfield. His mother Elizabeth (née Chambers) of Kirkmichael was a widow seventeen years older than his father, weaver Daniel Mackenzie; the couple married on May 8, 1794. Daniel died three weeks after William's birth, and his 45-year-old mother raised him alone; as Daniel had left her no significant property.

Mackenzie's mother arranged for him to apprentice with tradesmen in Dundee, but in 1814, he secured financial backing from Edward Lesslie to open a general store and circulating library in Alyth. During this period Mackenzie had a relationship with Isabel Reid, of whom nothing is known except that she gave birth to Mackenzie's illegitimate son on July 17, 1814. The boy was raised by Mackenzie's mother. 

During the recession which followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Mackenzie's store in Dundee went bankrupt and he travelled to seek work in Wiltshire in 1818, for a canal company. He travelled briefly to France and then worked for a short period for a newspaper in London. Lacking stable employment, at age 25 Mackenzie emigrated to British North America with John Lesslie. 

Mackenzie initially found a job working on the Lachine Canal in Lower Canada, then wrote for the Montreal Herald. John Lesslie settled in York, Upper Canada (now Toronto). Mackenzie was soon employed at Lesslie's bookselling/drugstore business. Mackenzie began to write for the York Observer.
In 1822, Edward Lesslie and the rest of his family, along with Elizabeth Mackenzie, joined Mackenzie and John Lesslie in Upper Canada. Elizabeth brought along a young woman, Isabel Baxter (1802–73), whom she had chosen for Mackenzie to marry. The couple were wed July 1, 1822 in Montreal. Isabel had 14 children with Mackenzie, including Isabel Grace Mackenzie, the mother of William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Edward and John Lesslie opened a branch of their business in Dundas, entering into a partnership with Mackenzie who moved to Dundas to be the store's manager. The store sold drugs, hardware, and general merchandise. Mackenzie also operated a circulating library. However, his relationship with the Lesslies soured and the partnership was dissolved in 1823. He moved to Queenston and established a business there. While there, he established a relationship with Robert Randal, one of four members representing Lincoln County in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.



The McKenzie Marsh property on St. John’s Sideroad in Aurora has been sold and landscaping behind the pond began sometime in May. Changes can be seen from the main boardwalk observation deck just West of the railroad tracks on the North side of the road. The pond is transforming and the standing trees and shrubs in the midst of the pond are progressively collapsing. Also note that on the East side of the pond behind the leaf-less landmark oak tree  a white cell tower post appeared sometime last year standing behind the water treatment facility.

Large Aurora house under construction on McKenzie Marsh goes up in flames

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/05/14/large-aurora-house-under-construction-goes-up-in-flames.html

The devastation of the property is reflected in the lack of wild life Gooses that used to lay eggs here were not returning.
I believe that land destruction for the benefit of one person had consequences.

McKenzie Wetland (also known as Aurora Wetland or McKenzie Marsh), an area designated as a Provincially Significant Wetland and an important environmental feature to the local community. The McKenzie Wetland is a permanent home to numerous fish and wildlife species. Recognizing a significant opportunity to both protect and enhance the wetland and its functions along with the roadway, York Region implemented a number of key design elements to limit intrusion in the marsh and restore many of the impaired functions of the wetland. 

While achieving the transportation objectives, project design emphasized improvements to: (1) Wetland area, function and attributes; (2) Fish and wildlife habitat and function; (3) Water quality and circulation. Other technical innovations associated with the project included: (1) Timber boardwalks, viewing areas, education and interpretive signage; (2) Unique streetscaping elements including landscaping and decorative lighting; (3) Bike paths throughout the length of the project, which linked the Town’s existing bicycle trail network to the McKenzie Wetland and its boardwalk; (4) Widening the roadway to a fully illuminated four lane urban cross-section with curb and gutter, storm sewers, sidewalks on both sides and traffic signals at major intersections. (5) Railway safety improvements that included profile revisions and new gates and signals at an existing at-grade commuter railway crossing; (6) Extension of the East Holland River Culvert, a triple-cell culvert, with construction being staged to maintain stream flows without using dam-and-pump or flow bypass methods; (7) Tunnel construction of the East Holland Sanitary Trunk Sewer using a tunnel boring machine with a connection to the Aurora Pumping Station. This $20 million project presented several challenges that in turn provided opportunities to develop unique design approaches. This project complimented the surroundings by being sensitive to both the natural environment, while enhancing the communities enjoyment of the area.
Links
https://youtu.be/1PlGB-RPo7g
https://www.livinginaurora.com/mckenzie-marsh-changing-landscape/
http://www.torontozoo.com/adoptapond/pdfs/r&e_Wed5.BHenshaw.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratcliff_Site,_Wendat_(Huron)_Ancestral_Village

McGinnis Lake former Shamanic Lake the Petrogliphs Provincial Park and Ancient Man Cut Megalitic Stones

Petroglyphs Provincial Park is a historical-class provincial park situated in Woodview, Ontario, Canada, northeast of Peterborough.

McGinnis Lake use to be named the Shamanic Lake and it is a sacred lake for the Native Americans.

The Ojibway (Anishinaabe) people who have lived in the region for millenia. The presence of the First Nations people is marked by the largest known concentration of rock carvings in Canada. Cut into white marble rock face centuries ago, the 900 petroglyphs depict turtles, snakes, birds, humans, and spiritual images. This sacred site is known as “the rocks that teach”, or Kinoomaagewaapkong, by the Anishinaabe people. This park protects an area that serves as a critical reminder of some of the region’s most ancient cultural history. After seeing this amazing site, continue your journey over to McGinnis lake. 

Indigenous peoples are caretakers of Mother Earth and realize and respect her gifts of water, air and fire. First Nations peoples’ have a special relationship with the earth and all living things in it. This relationship is based on a profound spiritual connection to Mother Earth that guided indigenous peoples to practice reverence, humility and reciprocity.   

http://www.afn.ca/honoring-earth/ 

I liked this declaration of the First Nation. It is inspiring and should be regarded with respect.

A Declaration of First Nations

We the Original Peoples of this land know the Creator put us here.

The Creator gave us laws that govern all our relationships to live in harmony with nature and mankind.

The Laws of the Creator defined our rights and responsibilities.

The Creator gave us our spiritual beliefs, our languages, our culture, and a place on Mother Earth which provided us with all our needs.

We have maintained our Freedom, our Languages, and our Traditions from time immemorial.

We continue to exercise the rights and fulfill the responsibilities and obligations given to us by the Creator for the land upon which we were placed.

The Creator has given us the right to govern ourselves and the right to self-determination.

The rights and responsibilities given to us by the Creator cannot be altered or taken away by any other Nation.

 http://www.afn.ca/about-afn/declaration-of-first-nations/

McGinnis Lake use to be named the Shamanic Lake Nature Lovers’ Paradise

For nature lovers there is a wide diversity of trees and plant life, including red and white pine with pockets of spruce and other trees such as white birch, sugar maple, and red oak. The park is home to a large population of white-tailed deer, as well as smaller mammals and bird life is abundant. Bald and golden eagles can occasionally be seen in the winter. 

McGinnis Lake use to be named the Shamanic Lake  is a meromictic lake.
A meromictic lake  is a lake which has layers of water that do not intermix.

In ordinary, holomictic lakes, at least once each year, there is a physical mixing of the surface and the deep waters.

Most lakes are holomictic; that is, at least once per year, physical mixing occurs between the surface and the deep waters. In so-called monomictic lakes, the mixing occurs once per year; in dimictic lakes, the mixing occurs twice a year (typically spring and autumn), and in polymictic lakes, the mixing occurs several times a year. In meromictic lakes, however, the layers of the lake water can remain unmixed for years, decades, or centuries. 


The lake is one a few meromictic lakes in Ontario, an effect that creates different oxygen levels at different layers of the lake where only certain depths can be habitable due to oxygen depletion. This lake has a fantastic green/blue hue to it and it is not permitted to swim or use watercraft on the lake as to not disturb the water. 

 Meromictic lakes can usually be divided into three sections or layers. The bottom layer is known as the monimolimnion; the waters in this portion of the lake circulate little, and are generally hypoxic and saltier than the rest of the lake. The top layer is called the mixolimnion, and essentially behaves like a holomictic lake. The area in between is referred to as the chemocline.

A meromictic lake may form for a number of reasons:

• The basin is unusually deep and steep-sided compared to the lake's surface area
• The lower layer of the lake is highly saline and denser than the upper layers of water

The layers of sediment at the bottom of a meromictic lake remain relatively undisturbed because there is little physical mixing and few living organisms to agitate them. There is also little chemical decomposition. For this reason, cores of the sediment at the bottom of meromictic lakes are important in tracing past changes in climate at the lake, by examining trapped pollen grains and the types of sediments 
 The term Algonquian (also spelled Algonkian) refers to one of  North America’s largest indigenous language families. Individual tribes or First Nations like the Innu, the Micmac, the Algonquin, the Ojibwe, and the Cree all speak a version of Algonquian. 

n 1954 a prospector, Everett Davis, sat on this rock face as he surveyed the area east of Eels Creek and north of Upper Stony Lake. He had been here before but had never noticed anything special; this time the sun’s light hit the rock just right and the images came out of the rock – some recognizable as humans or animals and others more abstract or fantastical.  As he pushed away the leaves and moss covering some of the rock face, more and more petroglyphs were revealed.  He did not know it at the time but he was standing on one of the largest petroglyph sites in Canada.

The territory lies on the southern edge of the Canadian Shield and before the arrival of the Europeans, it was in the cultural transition zone between Algonquian-speaking communities (the Anishinaabeg) to the north who lived in small mobile hunter-gatherer (foraging) bands and Iroquoian-speaking communities (the Haudenosaunee) with their larger and more advanced agriculture-based villages to the south.

A number of the images on the rock have parallels with pictographs at other sites on the Canadian Shield which are known to be Algonquin or Ojibwe or Cree. Thus, placing the petroglyphs in an Algonquian context fits the evidence best.
Since carbon dating a petroglyph is not possible, the discovery of other datable material at the site helped set a rough parameter for when it was used.  Found in the crevasses of the rock were bits of pottery – the remains of small offering bowls? –  which were dated back about 1000 years, placing it in the Woodlands Period of pre-Columbian archaeology.  At the very least, this puts the creation of the petroglyphs before the arrival of the French in the 1600s.

In 1976  the Ontario government of the day created a new park – Petroglyphs Provincial Park.  Since 1990 Ontario Parks has managed the site along with members of a nearby Ojibwa First Nation whose ancestors first moved into the area in the late 1700s. Their present community is found on Buckhorn Lake southwest of and above Burleigh Falls.

1. The Learning Centre 
The Visitors’ Centre, also called The Learning Centre, opened to the public in 2002 and is where the visit to the site begins.  While the building has a small gift shop with various souvenirs and a movie theatre with seats for perhaps 80 visitors, the main attraction is a colourful multi-panelled poster display.  We spent some time reading our way through the various snippets of text. I had expected an introduction to the petroglyphs and their meaning to be the main focus but it soon became clear that there was something else being presented here.

https://albinger.me/2015/06/07/the-peterborough-petroglyphs-building-over-an-ancient-algonquian-ritual-site/


Here is a movie regarding the Petroglif Provincial Park

The Teaching Rocks (1987) by Lloyd Walton

https://vimeo.com/39439727 

 About Shamanism

For over 100,000 years, shamans around the world have perfected the art of traveling in consciousness to other levels of reality, gaining access to information that can seem quite extraordinary about how to treat and prevent disease, avoid negative situations, clear family issues, plan for our future, and more.

Here are few Shamanic Practices

A few of the frequently used shamanic healing practices are:

• Power animal retrieval (restoring spiritual power to the individual)
• Shamanic extraction (removal of spiritual intrusions or energies that simply do not belong)
• Soul retrieval (reintegrating soul parts that have departed from a client)
• Shamanic drum healing (allowing the healing power of spirits to pass through the drum to the client)
• Passing on the power of the helping spirits to the client
• Psychopomp work (helping/guiding souls who have passed)

https://shamanichealingpath.com/portfolio-items/treatments/

 

 Ancient Machine cuttings.  Were these places ancient megalithic structures?

Stones cut at 90 degree angles .