The Shawashkong River Story
(6000 to first European contact) The York River established its present form about 4,700 years ago and has been used by the Algonquin for thousands of years. The York River was called the “Shawashkong”, meaning “crooked to the treetops” in Algonquin. It flows into the Madawaska River (meaning “reeds at the fork in the river” […]
Hardwood Forests – Not quite as it seems
On the downhill slope from the Hawkwatch, the soil depth enables healthy tree growth. Compare the healthy red oak trees here to the stunted red maples and red oaks growing on the granite bedrock above. The white pine was logged from here in the 1800s and now the soil supports a thriving deciduous forest mixed […]
A Sacred Place
The Algonquin and their ancestors traveled, camped, hunted, fished, conducted ceremonies and communed with the natural world since truly ancient times. The Algonquin believe that this special landscape is alive with the spirits of the rocks, waters, forests, skies, and the ancestors of the Algonquins. It is a place where the spirit of the eagle […]
First Peoples
With the retreat of the ice, animals such as caribou, moved into the newly opened landscape grazing on the emerging vegetation. Waterfowl took advantage of the abundant wetlands. The environment around Bancroft would have been very similar to arctic and sub-artic conditions for thousands of years! Small groups of highly mobile and adaptive indigenous hunters […]
