Petun Conservation Area
This Viking and Ojibwe friend hiked the Land of the Anishinaabeg people on the Niagara Escarpment. This place is now referred to as the Petun Conservation Area in the Town of Blue Mountains.
We stood together on the ancient rock where his ancestors once stood and looked out across the Land and Water since time immemorial of what is now Clearview Township and Georgian Bay.
It was here that they kept watch over their people, hunting grounds, and the Betan (Beh-ton), anglicized as Petun, Villages below that went from Craigleith to Creemore. The Betan were here from the late 1500s to mid 1600s, over a period of 70 years.
I was told the Anishinaabe oral history of when the enemy were sighted, fires were lit across the edge of Escarpment up to Manitoulin Island. When seen, his people would come together in the strength of numbers from all directions.
Along the trail, the forest glistened with incredible ice beauty as we shared our knowledge of the land and inhabitants and how they provide for us.
There was a moment (one of several) of great Mnidoo (Spirit) when the place where we two friends stood was presented with a light like I have never seen before and one that I will forever remember. All around us, the ice released from the trees like frozen rain.
Reconciliation has begun….
NIAGARA ESCARPMENT HISTORY & HIKING 