Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang

On July 22, 1921, the Toronto Star published Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang, an article chronicling the region’s distinct and resilient Métis community.

Brought to life with “stories of buried gold”, “a forgotten army”, and “children aged 104”—and spotlights on several “virile and thrilling” Métis residents, who “are worth meeting”, including members of the Dusome, Vasseur, and Gordon families—Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang provides a vivid description of the enduring Métis community at Penetanguishene, including those living at Pinery Point, nearly a century after the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s relocation from Drummond Island:

“Pinery Point is a wooded peninsula almost directly across the bay from Penetanguishene… Along its shores dwells a group of people half French and half Indian, isolated in location, distinct in habits and privileges, and fiercely resentful of intrusion on either.”

Referring specifically to Pinery Point’s residents as “picturesque metis or halfbreeds”, Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang describes the community’s proud and distinctive Métis culture and way of life, noting they continue, “living chiefly in low log houses of a century ago, they are almost all illiterate and speak a broken English patois which is all their own.”

At the time of its 1921 publication, Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang built upon generations of recognition of the distinct Métis community at Penetanguishene by community members and outsiders alike, which continues to this day.

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