Point Pelee (Pointe-Pelée), Ontario, is the southernmost point of mainland Canada. The country’s first national park to be established for conservation was established there in 1918. Fathers Dollier and Galinee named it “Pelée” (French for “bald”) in 1670 because the eastern side was rocky and had no trees. In 1790 British deputy Indian agent Alexander McKee negotiated a treaty with the Ottawa (Odawa), Chippewa (Ojibwa), Pottawatomi (Bodéwadmi), and Huron (Wendat) tribes, who ceded a large tract of land in southwestern Ontario to the government, but the Caldwell First Nation who inhabited it were not signatories. Because of their service during the War of 1812 they were promised land at Point Pelee and they remained there until the 1850s. In the 1920s the Royal Canadian Mounted police and local law enforcement agencies burned the homes of the tribal remnants to force them out of their traditional homeland. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has publicly acknowledged that Point Pelee remains unceded aboriginal land, but the Caldwell First Nation is the only federally recognized aboriginal band in southern Ontario without a reserve land of its own.
Farmhouse on Pelee Point
Point Pelee (Pointe-Pelée), Ontario, is the southernmost point of mainland Canada. The country’s first national park to be established for conservation was established there in 1918. Fathers Dollier and Galinee named it “Pelée” (French for “bald”) in 1670 because the eastern side was rocky and had no trees. In 1790 British deputy Indian agent Alexander McKee negotiated a treaty with the Ottawa (Odawa), Chippewa (Ojibwa), Pottawatomi (Bodéwadmi), and Huron (Wendat) tribes, who ceded a large tract of land in southwestern Ontario to the government, but the Caldwell First Nation who inhabited it were not signatories. Because of their service during the War of 1812 they were promised land at Point Pelee and they remained there until the 1850s. In the 1920s the Royal Canadian Mounted police and local law enforcement agencies burned the homes of the tribal remnants to force them out of their traditional homeland. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has publicly acknowledged that Point Pelee remains unceded aboriginal land, but the Caldwell First Nation is the only federally recognized aboriginal band in southern Ontario without a reserve land of its own.
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