Christian Island, Ontario
Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHR : Christian Island, Ontario
Christian Island is a large island in Georgian Bay close to the communities of Penetanguishene and Midland, Ontario. The island, with its neighbors Hope Island and Beckwith Island, is an Ojibwa reserve. (Originally, Christian Island was known by the local Hurons as Gahoendoe. The three islands were, in the 19th century, collectively known as the Christian Islands and Beckwith Island was called Faith Island, while Christian Island, which is the largest of the three, was known as Charity Island.) The First Nations living on Christian Island are members of the Beausoleil First Nation. Together with other First Nation groups in the area they have a land claim pending for the narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching.
Christian is inhabited by the Chippewas of Beausoleil First Nation. The band, originally from northern Georgian Bay, settled at Coldwater in the 1830s but was offered Christian Island and land along the east side of Lake Couchiching (Rama). The band has tried various ways of generating income, including stocking the island with pheasants and making hardwood into charcoal. Today, many of them work on the mainland and a growing community has sprung up on band-owned property at the Cedar Point landing. The Christian Island band leases some beach properties to cottagers. Hope and Beckwith islands are uninhabited, but (especially Beckwith) are popular anchorage sites for boaters, who are required to pay a small anchorage fee to the band council. There is a ferry service from the mainland at Cedar Point to Christian Island. At times of severe cold, the band builds an ice road between the island and the mainland. Christian Island also has a lighthouse that marks the southern tip of the islands and was used in the past for ships travelling from Collingwood to Penetanguishene, Midland, and Parry Sound.
In 1649, Christian Island was briefly used as a refuge for Jesuit missionaries and Huron refugees from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons during the Huron-Iroquois wars. The occupation of Christian Island by the fleeing Hurons and Jesuits is where the name "Christian" island comes from. It was named in honour of the Canadian Martyrs.
The Jesuits and most of the Huron re4fugees left the island and travelled to Quebec in the summer of 1650. The remaining Huron, along with the surviving remants of the Petun, an Iroquoian group living at the base of the Niagara Escarpment near present-day Collingwood, left the island in 1651. The Petun had suffered serious losses in Iroquois raids in late 1649 and 1650.
Their descendants eventually settled in the Detroit-Windsor area. Some were later forcibly resettled by U.S. authorities in Oklahoma.
Christian Island is primiarily used for grazing cattle and is heavily wooded. The soil is mainly sand, remnants of glacial Lake Algonquin.
Canadian folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot penned a song about Christian Island in 1972, alluding to the popularity of the island as a sailing area.
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