Penetanguishene, indeed, as a port, no longer requires such an approach as this. The naval and military depôt which existed there has been abolished; and Collingwood, since it has been made the primary terminus on Lake Huron of the Northern Railway of Canada, is the place of resort for the steamers and shipping of the upper lakes. Nevertheless, the fine highway referred to yields permanently to the inhabitants of Vespra and Oro, Flos and Medonte, Tiny and Tay, the incalculable advantage of easy communication with each other and markets to the south,—the same advantage that Yonge Street yielded to the settlers of Vaughan and Markham, King and Whitchurch, and the three townships of Gwillimbury, in the primitive era of their local history.
It is, however, not improbable that Penetanguishene itself will again acquire importance when hereafter properly connected with our railway system, now so surely advancing to the north shore of Lake Huron: thence to push on to the North-West.
Dr. Thomas Rolfe, in his Statistical Account of Upper Canada, appended to his book on the West Indies and United States, spoke in 1836 of the region which we have now reached, thus: "The country about Penetanguishene on Lake Huron is remarkably healthy; the winter roads to it, crossing Lake Simcoe, excellent. In the summer months," he says, "it is delightful to persons who are pleased and entertained by the wild grandeur and simplicity of nature. The pure and transparent waters of the beautiful bay, and the verdant foliage of the vast woods on the east side of the harbour, form a very picturesque scene."
Capt. Bonnycastle visited Penetanguishene in 1841. He was present at one of the periodical distributions of government presents to the Indians. A great concourse of the native people, from far and near, was assembled on the occasion. Under such circumstances, Penetanguishene and its surroundings must have presented a peculiarly interesting appearance.
"I happened to be at Penetanguishene," Capt. Bonnycastle says, "when the unfortunate Pou-tah-wah-tamies and nearly two thousand other Indians arrived there, the latter to receive their annual gifts, the former to implore protection. [They had been recently removed from their lands in the United States by the U. S. authorities.] I had never seen the wild and heathen Indians before," the Captain observes, "and shall never forget the impression their appearance, on an August evening, with everything beautiful in the scene around, made upon me. To do honour to the commandant of the British port and his guests, these warlike savages selected for the conference a sloping green field in front of his house, whose base was washed by the waters of the Huron, which exhibited the lovely expanse of the basin, with its high and woody background, and the single sparkling islet in the middle. No spot could have been imagined more suitable. Behind it rose the high hill which, cleared of timber, is dotted here and there with the neat dwellings of the military residents." He then describes the dresses of the Indians, their painted faces, their war-dances, &c.
"The garrison," he says, "is three miles from the village, and is always called the Establishment; and in the forest between the two places is a new church built of wood, very small, but sufficient for the Established Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A clergyman is constantly stationed here for the army, navy, and civilians."
In regard to the provisions supplied to the soldiers and others, Capt Bonnycastle has the following remarks: "A farmer [Mr. Mairs, as we presume] on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is," he says, "the contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the world and in the wilderness, than any other; and, as fish is plentiful, the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White Rolling Sand live well." Penetanguishene means "the place of the falling sands;" the reference being to a remarkable sandy cliff which has been crumbling away from time immemorial, on the western side of the entrance to the harbour.
We have a notice of Penetanguishene in 1846, in a volume of Travels in Canada, by the Rev. A. W. H. Rose, published in 1849. "Penetanguishene," the writer says, "is situated at the bottom of a bay extremely shallow on one side, and is a small military and naval station, the latter force consisting of two iron war-steamers, of about sixty-horse power each. There is said to be a nice little society in this (until lately) out of the way station of Upper Canada. The probability is, however," remarks the same writer, "that it will, as a naval and military depôt, have to be eventually shifted to Owen Sound, where there is a military reserve specially retained in the survey, as, from the number of shoals about Penetanguishene, the island, &c., the harbour is said generally to close up with the ice three weeks earlier, and to continue shut three weeks later than at the Sound."
A diagram in the Canadian Journal (i. 225), illustrating a paper by Mr. Sandford Fleming, shews the remarkable terraced character of the high banks of the harbour at Penetanguishene. "There are appearances in various parts of this region," Mr. Fleming says, "that lead us to infer that the waters of Lake Huron, like those of Ontario, formerly stood at higher levels than they at present occupy. Parallel terraces and ridges of sand and gravel can be traced at different places winding round the heads of bays and points of high land with perfect horizontality, and resembling in every respect the present lake beaches. One of them particularly strikes the attention in the bay of Penetanguishene, at a height of about seventy feet above the level of the lake. It can be seen distinctly on either side from the water, or by a spectator standing on one bank while the sun shines obliquely on the other, so as to throw the deeper parts of the terrace in shadow."
Mr. Fleming then gives a section "sketched from a cutting a little below Jeffery's tavern in the village of Penetanguishene, serving to shew the manner in which the soil has been removed from the side hill and deposited in a position formerly under water by the continued mechanical action of the waves. Not only does the peculiar stratification of the lower part of the terrace confirm the supposition that it was deposited on the shore of the ancient lake, but the fact that such excavations have been made in this land-locked position, where the waves could never have had much force, goes far to prove that the lake stood for a long period at this high level." (From the successive subsidences here spoken of by Mr. Fleming, the island known as the Giant's Tomb, in the entrance to Georgian Bay, has its peculiar appearance, viz., that of a colossal grave elevated on a high platform or pedestal.)