Champlain-Wendat Rotary Park pays tribute to early French explorers and the Huron-Wendat Peoples of Penetanguishene

Sculpture commemorating the meeting of Samuel de Champlain and Chief Aenon, showing them as equals, at Champlain-Wendat Park. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

July 2024

Community parks are an important part of life in our cities and towns. Some are passive parks for relaxation, a place for sports activities, for special events, for children to play on play structures or part of a waterfront beach area, they play a role in the quality of life for residents and visitors.

Champlain-Wendat Rotary Park, in the southern Ontario town of Penetanguishene, is a park that combines a play place for children, for sporting activities, for families to gather and relax or listen to live music, with statues and monuments that tell the history of the Penetanguishene area going back to the time when the first French explorers encountered the Indigenous tribes that lived in the area.

The 90-acre park was created as a part of a remediation project started in the 1990s. Penetanguishene Bay was once an important port for the logging industry in the area, but by the late 20th Century, the long-defunct logging industry had left behind more than 60 shipping containers full of wood debris, which was cleared out in 1994.

Rehabilitation of a drainage channel allowed the low water levels to return to normal depths, along with restoring a suitable habitat to sustain fish and wildlife in and around the bay.

The park is filled with an amphitheatre, a basketball court, beach volleyball and swimming areas, washrooms, a skateboard park, splash-pads and playgrounds for the kids, a covered pavilion, accessible playground, a dog park, picnic tables, and a historical trail featuring statues and historical features with interpretive plaques explaining the history of the Penetanguishene area and the people who helped create modern-day Ontario.

The project was aided by a $3.5-million federal and provincial funding infusion to celebrate 400 years of Franco-Ontarian history, commemorating when French explorer Samuel de Champlain landed in Ontario, encountering the Wendat Peoples.

On any given day in the spring and summer, the beach at the park is filled with people, geese, gulls, families of ducks, loons, and if you’re patient, the occasional fish jumping. The only danger they face is from children charging at the birds to see them fly away, and the occasional playful dog.