In September 2018, GBBR with many community partners, first nations, municipalities, businesses and individuals celebrated the completion of the first phase of the Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve’s Zigwaan River-Seguin Stewardship project with the unveiling of its butterfly garden.
Prior to the start of the unveiling ceremony, children from Wasauksing Kinomaugewgamik School spread milkweed seeds throughout the garden on Great North Road.
“Our river here was very, very sacred to us at one time,” said John Rice of Wasauksing First Nation. “We would gather here in the springtime and in the fall to harvest fish, but also in recent history in the late ’50s and early ’60s a number of people were drowning from our community – my father and uncle being two of them – so what the people remembered at that time is we used to feast this river. So they had a ceremony and they feasted the spirit of this river and the drownings stopped.”
Nearest city or town: Parry Sound
Project start date: September 1, 2018
End date: September 30, 2018
Project focus: Combination of Education, Restoration, and Monitoring
Project contact: Rebecca Pollock