Shirley Peruniak – Farewell to a Quetico Legend

For over three decades Shirley compiled information about Quetico’s natural and human history. To accomplish this, she took extended fact finding canoe trips into the interior of Quetico, worked with the Elders of the Lac La Croix First Nation to make their history and contributions to the area available to others, read Quetico Park research… Continue reading Shirley Peruniak – Farewell to a Quetico Legend

Book Review: Prehistoric Lakeheaders – The 90-Century Story of Pre-Contact Thunderbayans by Alan Wade

Alan Wade is giving a talk about his book on Saturday, March 30 at 2:00 pm at the Waverley Library in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Prehistoric Lakeheaders – The 90-Century Story of Pre-Contact Thunderbayans  is available at Amazon.ca in both paperback and kindle and at Amazon.com This book is not a technical, scholarly treatise, but rather a… Continue reading Book Review: Prehistoric Lakeheaders – The 90-Century Story of Pre-Contact Thunderbayans by Alan Wade

His Enthusiasm is Contagious

His Enthusiasm is Contagious In 1963 Joe Marohnic was teaching in Niagara Falls, Ontario when he and his wife Jennifer decided to get away from the pollution and bureaucracy in southern Ontario. After much searching they decided on a town on the edge of a wilderness park. Joe took advantage of the easy access to… Continue reading His Enthusiasm is Contagious

Return of the XY Company

The XY Company was a Canadian fur trade enterprise that was formed in 1797 by a group of men that were disenchanted with Simon McTavish’s leadership of the NorthWest Company. They were in direct and sometimes rabid competition with the NorthWest Company who labeled their packs NW; hence the new group called themselves by the… Continue reading Return of the XY Company

Breaking Barriers: Conclusion

Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park – Conclusion When Tom stepped out of the water at the French Lake beach on August 28, he had swum 80 kilometers and portaged over a kilometer from his start on the west end of Beaverhouse Lake on August 24. It was a tremendous accomplishment – especially for someone… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Conclusion

Published
Categorized as Articles

Breaking Barriers: Day Five

Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park – Day Five They awoke to another beautiful, sunny day and they all knew that soon there would soon be a large group of people gathering at French Lake to see Tom complete the “Breaking the Barrier” swim. For the last three mornings they had been on the water… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Day Five

Published
Categorized as Articles

Breaking Barriers: Day Four

Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park – Day Four After the storm had passed, the weather looked stable. Today was the swim across the big, open expanse of Pickerel Lake. If the wind picked up, this could be a difficult day. It started out cloudy and fairly calm and there was just a light wind… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Day Four

Published
Categorized as Articles

Breaking Barriers: Day Three

Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park – Day Three Everyone was up before sunrise to get an early start. Mike McKinnon, the editor of the “Atikokan Progress”, was writing articles about the trip for the Atikokan Progess. He noted that: “About eight of us were camped on the north side of the lake, and someone… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Day Three

Published
Categorized as Articles

Breaking Barriers: Day Two

Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park – Day Two This is the big day; yesterday’s ten km swim was just a warm up. Tom was determined to make the second day a long and productive one. The forecast was for a warm day with light winds so Tom set an ambitious goal. He hoped to… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Day Two

Published
Categorized as Articles

Breaking Barriers: Day One

Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park – Day One The first day of the swim, August 24, started at Hoppy’s Drive-In, owned by Tom’s sister Tammy and her husband Dan Ellis. About one hundred people gathered to give Tom and his crew a send-off. A caravan of cars escorted them to the junction with Highway… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Day One

Published
Categorized as Articles

Breaking Barriers: Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park

Map of Quetico Park swim

Click here for Print Version Introduction On May 10, 1992, Sheila Hainey decided to go to town during her lunch hour to pick up some bedding plants for her garden. She was an avid gardener and she was concerned that if she waited until after work the plants would be sold out.Sheila worked at Quetico… Continue reading Breaking Barriers: Tom Hainey Swims Across Quetico Park

Quetico Park: Twelve Thousand Years in the Making – A Century of Protection

Quetico celebrated its 100th Anniversary last year. Quetico was originally set aside in 1909 as the Quetico Forest Reserve, became a Provincial Park in 1913, logging was banned in 1972 and it was declared a wilderness park in 1978. Quetico is characterized by towering cliffs, rocky islands and sandy beaches in a watery landscape of clear… Continue reading Quetico Park: Twelve Thousand Years in the Making – A Century of Protection

Excerpts from chapters in Quetico: Near to Natures Heart.

Prelude (excerpt) QUETICO — ONE HUNDRETH ANNIVERSARY OF A “MAGIC LAND” In 1909, Ernest Oberholtzer, a pioneer in preserving the Quetico-Superior region, made a canoe trip in Quetico with his Ojibwa friend Billy Magee. They saw moose almost every day; they were intrigued by the pictographs they encountered; they marvelled at the beauty of Rebecca… Continue reading Excerpts from chapters in Quetico: Near to Natures Heart.

Life Under the Ice

During the winter, all life under the ice has to adapt to conditions that are strikingly different from those found in the summer. In the summer, our lakes are layered with the warmest water on top and the coldest on the bottom. As you descend, the temperature slowly decreases until you reach the thermocline where… Continue reading Life Under the Ice

Lichens: Unusual Partners

It’s not hard to find lichens, you simply have to look where other forms of life find the conditions too harsh. Sheer cliff walls, the surface of large boulders, tree trunks, the branches of living and dead trees, and the shaded acidic soils under pines, are all places where lichens thrive. They have even been… Continue reading Lichens: Unusual Partners

Ice Age Journey

  Quetico Park contains a wide variety of different habitats: large stands of mature red and white pine, even-aged jack pine and poplar stands (the result of recent fires), wet areas with an understory of moss and overstory of black spruce, and open bogs composed of leather leaf, sphagnum moss and orchids. These and a… Continue reading Ice Age Journey

Chuck Farnum: Bushwhacker Extraordinaire

Some people go into Quetico to fish, some to find solitude and others for the scenery and wildlife. Others, however, like Charles “Chuck” Farnum and his extended family, are “bush-whackers” extraordinaire; they seek out and explore places that are seldom visited. If Chuck Farnum, the clan elder, wouldn’t have been become a doctor, he would… Continue reading Chuck Farnum: Bushwhacker Extraordinaire

Return to the Powell Homestead on Saganagons Lake

A few summers ago, Betty Powell Skoog returned to the homestead on Saganagons Lake in Quetico Park where she was born and spent the first fifteen years of her life. This beautiful site on the eastern end of the lake was home to three generations of Powells. During their half-century on Saganagons, five children were… Continue reading Return to the Powell Homestead on Saganagons Lake

A Raven’s Knowledge

  I love watching ravens fly. They seem to delight in performing a wide variety of aerial acrobatics. Other birds seem to fly primarily for practical purposes: searching for food, avoiding predators, or simply moving from place to place. Ravens, however, often seem to cavort in the air with joyous abandon simply because it is… Continue reading A Raven’s Knowledge

Pukak: Life Under The Snow

Winter is the time of year when everything seems to slow down in the Boundary Waters area. It is much quieter in the woods since most of the birds have left for warmer climates where food is more abundant in the winter. Animals o various sizes, from black bears to least chipmunks, have retreated to… Continue reading Pukak: Life Under The Snow