Michipicoten Scenic Lookout

From this high bluff, the view takes in Lake Superior, the coastline of Michipicoten Bay, Michipicoten Island, Michipicoten Lighthouse, and Michipicoten Harbour. The Ojibway word Michipicoten is believed to mean "high bluffs," "place of large hills," or "landing place," and Michipicoten was a traditional summer settlement site for the local Michipicoten Ojibway and their ancestors as well as one of the oldest original place names on a map of Ontario. Michipicoten Island, the second largest island on Lake Superior, is 26 kilometres wide, 10.5 kilometres long, and 72 kilometres away, with ancient volcanic geology that includes sea caves, agates, copper, and amethyst. For centuries, local Michipicoten Ojibway people believed the island was haunted, and early Europeans recorded a legend of four Michipicoten Ojibway who hunted and explored there, became deathly ill, and fled the island spirit, with only one returning to his village before soon dying after recounting his tale; it is possible the hunters accidentally poisoned themselves by using copper stones to heat their campfire meals. Lake Superior's first lighthouse was built on the island in 1872, and an abandoned 19th century copper mine provided copper used to cover the roof of Canada's Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. Today most of the island is protected as Michipicoten Island Provincial Park, home to three automated lighthouses, half a dozen shipwrecks, a healthy population of woodland caribou, and a unique natural environment. Michipicoten Lighthouse on Perkwakwia Point was constructed in 1902 because of increased commercial fishing and shipping traffic to Michipicoten Harbour, served as the last manned lighthouse on the Canadian Lake Superior shipping route, and was automated in 1991. Michipicoten First Nation Treaty No. 49 encompasses nine square miles of the northeast corner of Michipicoten Bay, and much of the land visible to the right was signed over by Chief Totomenai to Queen Victoria's representative in 1850 in the Robinson-Superior Treaty; Michipicoten First Nation later became one of the first to negotiate fair compensation for disputed land issues. Michipicoten Harbour and Oakes Cove lie on the north shore of Michipicoten Bay, with Oakes Cove home to a commercial fishing industry since the 1870's and Michipicoten Harbour the site of a busy shipping industry from the early 1880's, first used by Mormon contractors as a depot for men and supplies for construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The first ore docks and railway loading trestle were built in 1899 after iron mining operations began in Wawa, and ore shipment led to the birth of Algoma Central Railway and the Algoma Central Steamship Line. During the 20th century, Michipicoten Harbour was a vibrant community with a school, Oakes Hotel, Summers General Store, post office, passenger steamers, pulpwood dock, staff houses for railway and logging company employees, and a Canada Customs Duty officer, and it remains one of the only deep water ports along the rugged east coast of Lake Superior.

Ontario · Canada