This event, begun in 1961, is the forerunner of all modern powwow festivals in central Canada and thus it has special status. Colonization had ended the tradition in the 1800s but the idea of traditional gatherings with dancing, drumming and singing never went away. Determining it was time to bring back the tradition to her community and make it public, Rosemary Fisher-Odjig made it part of her life’s work to rekindle the powwow spirit in her community and brought dancers and drummers from Saskatchewan the first year to help her cause. The rest is history and this important festival, held the Civic Holiday Weekend each August is part of a North American powwow circuit that brings competitive dancers from all parts of Canada and the United States where they compete, within their chosen categories, for prizes and cash. It is a very large cultural spectacle with crafts vendors from all over North America on hand.
Sheshegwaning First Nation is located on the western portion of Manitoulin Island and its entry point off Highway 540 is five kilometres past the hamlet of Silver Water. Its traditional powwow is held the third weekend in June each year and visitors find it a friendly place to enjoy the dancing and drumming and visit the many traditional food and crafts vendors.
Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory is Manitoulin’s and Northern Ontario’s largest First Nation community so it’s not surprising that it hosts two powwow events each year.
Each is different, though. The traditional powwow is held each year the third weekend in June at Thunderbird Park in the heart of the village of Wiikwemkoong. What makes this event unique is that, each year, it is planned and hosted by one of Wiikwemkoong’s satellite communities and each of these (Buzwah, Kaboni, Rabbit Island, South Bay, Murray Hill) will put their own mark on the powwow when it is their turn to host.
Sheguiandah First Nation’s annual traditional powwow is held each year the first weekend in July at the community’s waterfront powwow grounds. The beautifully treed setting ensures that there’s shade enough for all and this event is one of the most popular of Manitoulin Island’s Powwow season. The food and crafts vendors are also nestled among the trees and the ambience of this event is one of calm tranquility. Sheguiandah First Nation is located on Highway 6, 10 km south of Little Current.
Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation Traditional Powwow
June 1st & 2nd
The Aundek Omni Kaning traditional Powwow festival is the first Manitoulin Island powwow event of the season each year, taking place the first weekend of June. The community’s park also doubles as the powwow grounds with the North Channel as the backdrop. AOK’s powwow grounds are quite close to the community’s housekeeping cottage tourism rentals called Endaa-Aang (our place). Aundek Omni Kaning First Nation is located on Highway 540, six kilometres west of Little Current.
Manitoulin Island is able to boast three theatre groups, each of them unique
Burns Wharf Players
Named after the Manitowaning waterfront warehouse (Burns Wharf) where this talented group treated patrons to 15 years of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the Burns Wharf Players are now bringing musical theatre to the revamped Knox United Church (in Manitowaning, at 25 Napier Street) while their beloved playhouse is being restored. The congregation at Knox United invited the players in and, during the spring rehearsal and late spring performances, have literally transformed the church’s sanctuary into a theatre setting. For details on Burns Wharf Players’ offerings, contact the box office at 1-866-967-8167 or book online at www.burnswharf.net
Gore Bay Summer Theatre
Gore Bay Summer Theatre presents two offerings through the month of July each year. This talented and well-directed group of volunteer actors, set designers and carpenters, lighting and sound technicians are also busy in the winter months when they pick a challenging dramatic work, polish it and go on to compete in the Northern Ontario regional drama festival, Quonta. Since they often win this event, they are also often off to Theatre Ontario’s showcase to compete against Ontario’s other regional winners in amateur theatre. The Gore Bay troupe is often successful at the provincial level too.
When you take in a summer production at the Gore Bay Summer Theatre, you’re being entertained by local thespians who hone their craft year-round. To see what’s on, call the box office at 705-2420 extension 3 or visit the town’s website www.gorebay.ca.
When you attend a production at Gore Bay Summer Theatre, you’ll find yourself in the town’s classic community hall at 25 Meredith Street in the downtown core.
De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Storytellers
Debajehmujig Storytellers is one of only a handful of professional Indigenous theatre groups in Canada.
Debajehmujig is headquartered in Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory but has its offices, rehersal space and theatre space in the village of Manitowaning at the Debajehmujig Creation Centre at 43 Queen Street.
The troupe has been presenting original work for over 35 years and has toured all across Canada and the United States, Europe and Great Britain.
The players present their own work at the Creation Centre theatre space which also often hosts touring performances.
Having their own theatre space gives Debajehmujig Storytellers flexibility and the versatile year-round theatre space is a real asset to Manitoulin Island’s cultural community.
The Creation Centre is also home to an art gallery with continually changing exhibits and installations.
The Debajehmujig Storytellers pride themselves on also being a land-based operation so crew and cast members get, literally, grounded in the growing season by spending some of their time helping to grow food and, each winter, hosting Manitoulin Island’s first ‘seed swap’ of the season. At Thanksgiving, the storytellers host a ‘Six Foot Festival’ of installations that fit in that space and there is an annual Christmas Cabaret show.
In the summer Debajehmujig Storytellers also often produce plays at Wiikwemikoong within the scenic stone ruins of a two-storey dormitory that once housed the community’s parish priests.
It is located on Wikwemikong Way, on top of one of the village’s highest point beside historic Holy Cross Catholic Church.
To find out what is going on at Debajehmujig Storytellers, visit www.storytellers@debaj.ca or call the theatre office at 705-859-1820.
When you take in a summer production at the Gore Bay Summer Theatre, you’re being entertained by local thespians who hone their craft year-round. To see what’s on, call the box office at 705-2420 extension 3 or visit the town’s website www.gorebay.ca.
When you attend a production at Gore Bay Summer Theatre, you’ll find yourself in the town’s classic community hall at 25 Meredith Street in the downtown core.
If you’re a golfer, by all means pack your clubs and come to Manitoulin Island.
Manitoulin is a large island (the biggest one in fresh water in the world) with a relatively small population (13,000-plus) but there are three golf courses here and each one of them is distinct in its features.
“Manitoulin’s Old Course” is the nine-hole Brookwood Brae Golf Course located not only within 2 km of the busy village of Mindemoya but also on the shoreline of Mindemoya Lake, one of Manitoulin’s larger inland lakes.
The nine hole course comes with its own array of bungalow cottages and is neighbour to three more housekeeping cottage businesses and a motel, all within walking distance of the course.
The course has challenging features and is also a fine course for golfers of every skill, especially those who, following their swing, can look forward to a glimpse of the beautiful lake, the large island called Treasure Island whose profile (an old woman on her hands and knees, according to local Ojibwe legend) will come in and out of your view as you play through, giving you the time to make up your own mind about the legend.
Just outside of the North Channel port town of Gore Bay, Manitoulin Golf offers golfers nine holes of bucolic beauty. The course, set in the fertile farmland that marks the Gore Bay area, is both gentle and subtly challenging. Manitoulin Golf is located in the rural township of Gordon/Barrie Island, although primarily agricultural, besides the golf course, is also the proud host of the Gore Bay-Western Manitoulin Airport and, along its share of the North Channel shoreline, one of Manitoulin’s distinctive and historic lighthouses: Janet Head Light.
We’ve covered the golf courses in Manitoulin’s central region and in its West End.
On Manitoulin’s eastern side, and just outside the historic village of Manitowaning, the Rainbow Ridge Golf Course is Manitoulin Island’s championship 18-hole golf course. It is also unique as it is owned and operated by the neighbouring Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve. This challenging course has numerous water features and a clubhouse that enables golfers to play their favourite game year-round, in any weather, at the state-of-the-art virtual golf course that has been installed there. Players can choose to play this way at most of the world’s most famous and challenging courses: suddenly, you’re there, at, for example, St. Andrew’s, and you have to match your play to the giant computer-generated vista before you and you must accommodate its perks and foibles as you play through as the virtual program gives you an extremely realistic experience, course by course.
Golf carts and clubs are available to rent at the pro shops at each course. Each club has dining facilities at its clubhouse and you’ll meet Manitoulin Island golfers as you play through or relax in the clubhouses.
Located on Manitoulin Island, CYC offers the finest selection of impeccably maintained modern yachts – sailboats, powerboats and catamarans. Our standard is second to none. CYC is located in the heart of the best freshwater cruising grounds in the world – “The North Channel”. Only 12 miles from the breathtaking Benjamin Islands.
Imagine pink granite islands, millions of years old, covered with windswept pines and scattered throughout a 120 mile expanse of the bluest freshwater in the world. Dozens of untainted anchorages, secret gunkholes and quaint harbour towns make up this “Boater’s Paradise”. This supreme waterway offers breath-taking scenery and solitude yet is within close reach of services and all amenities.
The timeless and unique pink granite of the Benjamin Islands, the protected sailing of the Whalesback Channel and the white quartz cliffs lining the 8 mile fjord of Baie Finn, are but a small part of this world renowned cruising area known as the North Channel of Lake Huron. The North Channel spills into Georgian Bay and there are literally hundreds of beautiful anchorages to discover.
Contact Information:
30 Water Street. Gore Bay, Ontario, Canada. P0P 1H0
We offer a variety of maritime services on the waters around Manitoulin. From the Killarney region to the western reaches of the North Channel – our events program is comprised of Regularly Scheduled Adventures offered to the public. Our public events calendar is then carefully woven in with a busy private charter and motor coach agenda.
Our signature tour offerings are comprised of main feature tours operated weekly in the summer and each one is quite diverse from the others. The main tours are known as “Sunset Dinner Cruise” – all with quality live entertainment aboard, “The Benjamin Islands“, “Baie Fine Fjord” and “Voyage to Killarney” adventures. In addition to these events, we are often create unique theme and seasonal offerings such as our Country Fest Songwriter Showcase and numerous dates with top notch live entertainment. From pirate parties to fall colours, we regularly add new events to keep our product range dynamic.
Contact Information:
1 Water St West, Box 596
Little Current, On, P0P 1K0
A stone’s throw from the OCF, around the corner and east on Hwy 540, is the unmissable Lillian’s Museum, a dedicated space attached to Lillian’s Crafts’ large shop that holds owner Lillian Debassige’s prized 70-odd-year-old collection of Anishinaabe arts and crafts.
A big room is arrayed from floor to ceiling in unique pieces of local Anishinaabe art dating back to the 1940s: rare ash baskets woven with consummate dexterity and intricate quill boxes with lifelike animals and plants tufted in quills by artists Anne Pangowish, Rose Williams, Josette Debassige, Mildred and Melanie Aguonie and many others whose work is preserved here for posterity.
The distinctive and highly collectable paintings of Wiikwemkoong artist Leland Bell line the back wall; ceramic bowls, beaded hide moccasins with fur trim and skillful carvings of antler and bone, going back many decades, line glass cases. Lillian’s collection is far reaching but intimate, inviting viewers to appreciate the age-old techniques, materials and designs used in the creation of these cultural treasures.
Lillian’s Museum: 5950 Hwy. 540, M’Chigeeng, Tel.: 705-377-4987. Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 am to 6 pm; Saturday 9 am to 5 pm; Sunday 10 am to 5 pm. Admission by donation. http://lilliansindiancrafts.com
Isobel Harry is a photographer and writer who has also worked extensively in the field of human rights advocacy. Her photos have been widely exhibited and she has published articles in many magazines; as programmes director and executive director for PEN Canada for twenty years, she worked on behalf of the right to freedom of expression internationally.
Now living on Manitoulin Island, Isobel works as a freelance writer and photographer and is a frequent contributor to the weekly Manitoulin Expositor newspaper and the annual This is Manitoulin magazine.
Her interests lie at the intersection of arts, culture and human rights.
