Oh, the stories that Beausoleil Island can tell to those willing to listen. Some from the thousands of years that Indigenous Peoples gathered, traded, farmed and lived on what the Anishinaabeg called Baamidoonegog, “rocky place floating about the mouth of a river.” Others that begin in 1929 when Ottawa answered calls to protect the Ontario island from cottage country development and it formed the core of Georgian Bay Islands National Park.

Parks Canada is having a virtual open house March 23 to hear from Canadians and Indigenous groups as it seeks input on a new draft management plan for Georgian Bay Islands National Park including Beausoleil Island National Historic Site.