The First Sheguiandah Expedition, Manitoulin Island, Ontario

Extract

On a Wooded Hilltop overlooking Sheguiandah Bay on Manitoulin Island is one of the most remarkable Indian sites ever discovered in Canada. It was found in the course of archaeological survey work in 1951 (Lee 1953). Extensive surface collections were made; the materials indicated that the site might be one of the earliest known in Ontario. Hundreds of large quartzite blades were obtained and their apparent connections were with the George Lake 1 site at Killarney, some twenty miles away on the mainland (Greenman 1943). The Sheguiandah site, vastly richer in material, gave promise of yielding valuable information about the nature and cultural connections of the people who had worked and perhaps lived there. Further, despite the fact that the site had thus far escaped the attentions of souvenir hunters and relic collectors, it was believed that any delay in investigations might subject it to the destructive forces which have fallen upon so many important prehistoric features.