Set just off the Ontario coast in Lake Huron, Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world (2,800 sq km). A wonderful place of petit villages, rolling pasture, forests and lakes, its edges are fringed with long beaches and white cliffs.

The first nations Oijbwa people, the island’s original inhabitants believed that when the Great Spirit, Gitchi Manitou, created the Earth he kept the best bits and made Manitoulin his home. In 1648 a group of French Jesuits became the first Europeans to settle on Manitoulin Island, which they named Isle de Ste. Marie.

Unfortunately they brought with them new disease that rapidly devastated the Ojibwa population. Marauding Iroquois bands, then drove out those who remained, leaving the island uninhabited for over a hundred years. During the 19th century, the island’s beauty attract the attention of white settlers who, after first giving Manitoulin to other native bands, then revoked all treaties and claimed for themselves.

Nowadays Manitoulin and the waters around it serve as Ontario’s summer playground with boats and all kinds of weaving in and out of its many bays and filing its large inland lakes. Hiking is popular and the island has a well signposted system of trails. Every August the Ojibwa Band holds one of Canada’s biggest powwows, a celebration of life through dance, storytelling and displays of arts and crafts.