To me, the name of this lake, sounds so mysterious and so exotic. Lake of the Woods got its name because it sprawls some 3000 sq km over wooded areas of northwestern Ontario. You are not going to believe this, I myself thought I needed to pay a visit to an optometrist when I saw this figure - over 14,000, yes over 14,000 islands are scattered all around and inside this lake.
Most of the islands are only tiny little sandy areas but some are big enough to be little towns and have sandy beaches and shorelines. This is the 6th largest lake of Ontario. First Nations people have been the inhabitants of this area for well over 8000 years.
Hudson Bay used to have a trading post on the Lake of the Woods in an area which is now known as Kenora and Kenora is a city that has become a hot tourist destination in Ontario, especially if you are into hunting and fishing.
Lake of the Woods also hugs the town of Sioux Narrows where the legendary battle between the invading Sioux and the local Cree and Ojibway was fought.
Here's a poem I found by an American poet Thomas R.Smith from his book of poetry "The Dark Indigo Current"
The Road to Kenora
Fifty miles above the border
I began to notice them,
five or six granite
rocks piled in roughly
human shapes every few
hundred feet. All afternoon 
I'd pressed northward along
Lake of the Woods, and now,
months after the funeral,
felt unaccompanied by my
father for the first time.
I mourned the misty, pine-
crested islands he would ,
never see, as I steered over
gravel in the darkening rain.
In Clearwater, a Canadian friend
would name them: inukshuk,
mysteriously numerous here
of Ojibway land, far south
of their Inuit provenance.
But driving in the July rain
I had no word for them,
though it seemed the reason
I drove was to give myself
into the keeping of these watchful,
ones whom I imagined
the dead joining, who
wove a corridor of presence
through the forest solitude
even farther from my father's
grave. And mile by mile
stone by stone, my heaviness
of heart was lifted to the road-
side and stacked with the griefs
of others who had passed this way
To me, the name of this lake, sounds so mysterious and so exotic. Lake of the Woods got its name because it sprawls some 3000 sq km over wooded areas of northwestern Ontario. You are not going to believe this, I myself thought I needed to pay a visit to an optometrist when I saw this figure - over 14,000, yes over 14,000 islands are scattered all around and inside this lake.
Most of the islands are only tiny little sandy areas but some are big enough to be little towns and have sandy beaches and shorelines. This is the 6th largest lake of Ontario. First Nations people have been the inhabitants of this area for well over 8000 years.
Hudson Bay used to have a trading post on the Lake of the Woods in an area which is now known as Kenora and Kenora is a city that has become a hot tourist destination in Ontario, especially if you are into hunting and fishing.
Lake of the Woods also hugs the town of Sioux Narrows where the legendary battle between the invading Sioux and the local Cree and Ojibway was fought.
Here's a poem I found by an American poet Thomas R.Smith from his book of poetry "The Dark Indigo Current"
The Road to Kenora
Fifty miles above the border
I began to notice them,
five or six granite
rocks piled in roughly
human shapes every few
hundred feet. All afternoon 
I'd pressed northward along
Lake of the Woods, and now,
months after the funeral,
felt unaccompanied by my
father for the first time.
I mourned the misty, pine-
crested islands he would ,
never see, as I steered over
gravel in the darkening rain.
In Clearwater, a Canadian friend
would name them: inukshuk,
mysteriously numerous here
of Ojibway land, far south
of their Inuit provenance.
But driving in the July rain
I had no word for them,
though it seemed the reason
I drove was to give myself
into the keeping of these watchful,
ones whom I imagined
the dead joining, who
wove a corridor of presence
through the forest solitude
even farther from my father's
grave. And mile by mile
stone by stone, my heaviness
of heart was lifted to the road-
side and stacked with the griefs
of others who had passed this way
KEewattin
ReplyDeleteNOrman
RAt portage.
That's the name of the three towns that joined to form Kenora. A close college friend was from Kenora and taught me a lot. Even that the Kenora Thistles won the Stanley Cup back in 1907.
If you are out there, then enjoy!!!