Sep. 14th, 2015

rfmcdonald: (photo)
With a friend, yesterday I revisited the west-end Toronto neighbourhood of Swansea, to the same streets I had visited in May. There, in the Lucy Maud Montgomery Park, the Swansea 8000 Years neighbourhood festival celebrating the long history of this area. The background was described by the Toronto Star Alex Ballingall.

Fourteen lovers of history came together this weekend to trace the ancient route taken by French explorer Étienne Brûlé, who was the first known European to travel the Lake Ontario region with the Huron-Wendat in September 1615.

Led by Christian Bode, president of the Société d’histoire de Toronto, the group paddled and hiked roughly 65 kilometres over three days, following the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail from Holland Marsh, near Orillia, to the Swansea neighbourhood on the east bank of the Humber River.

[. . .]

The re-enactment of Brûlé’s journey started Friday, when the group canoed the first stretch in Lake Couchiching and attended a ceremony at the Champlain Monument, which is named after the founder of Quebec City in 1608 — then capital of New France — who commissioned Brûlé to help explore and chart the Great Lakes region. The group also attended the opening of a new pavilion that was dedicated to the local Ojibwa.

As Bode’s group made their way southwest, they planted a tree in East Gwillimbury, took in a French choir performance at a Newmarket farmer’s market, lunched with the local mayor at the Aurora Armoury, unveiled a new plaque to the Carrying-Place Trail in Vaughan, and finally made their way to Swansea.

The hike concluded with a celebration of francophone and aboriginal history at the Lucy Maud Montgomery Parkette on Riverside Dr., with actors dressed in the garb of the early 17th century and an unveiling of a moccasin project for the occasion by Garry Sault, an Ojibwa elder with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.


The Moccasin Project, meanwhile, unveiled by Elder Gary Sault of the Mississauga of the New Credit Nation, was eyecatching.

Introduction to Moccasin Project #toronto #swansea #firstnations #humberriver #moccasinproject #garrysault


Walking in steps #toronto #swansea #firstnations #humberriver #moccasinproject


Moccasins #toronto #swansea #firstnations #humberriver #moccasinproject
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