Annette Sandberg grew up on the Blue Mountains section of the Niagara Escarpment, just three km west of Scenic Caves and she now resides in Collingwood. She is a local historian, researcher, and writer for the Gaslight Tour and the Grey Roots Museum, and guides people on interactive hikes through the land she writes about.
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March 16th, 1696 marks the anniversary date of the Battle of Blue Mountains between the Anishinaabe and the Haudenosaunee Warriors.
The Anishinabek also have an extensive history on the Niagara Escarpment. The Southern Georgian Bay region belonged to the Ottawa (Odawa) Indians, who had wintered in the Beaver valley for perhaps thousands of years, and no doubt hunted across the land to the Blue Mountains.
The Odawa were one of the three bands comprising the Confederacy of the Anishinabek Nation, known as the Council of the Three Fires - the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawtomi.
Friends of the Odawa, the Petun, were able to move into the Odawa territory, building nine villages across the bottom of the Escarpment, from Craigleith to Duntroon.
In December 1649, the Iroquois attacked the Petun village of Etharita near Duntroon, causing the disbursement of the Petun and leaving the Iroquois on the Odawa hunting territory.
OChief Sahgimah (c. 1646-1721), leader of the Odawa tribe, was assigned to lead warriors into battle against the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois).
The invasion was one of many that were fought during the Beaver Wars, caused by the insatiable British demand for the beaver pelts that dominated the fashion trend and social status of the wealthy in Europe.
Chief Sahgimah’s plan was to lead a war party of 4,000 warriors travelling in 700 canoes against the Haudenosaunee.
According to Peter S, Schmalz’s ‘The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario,’ the battle of the Blue Mountains took place at the mouth of the Nottawasaga River and into what is now in Clearview Township. Positioned on the mountain side, the Odawa warriors lay in wait as a few Iroquois guards settled in for the night at the river's edge.
When the sun rose on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay the following day, the Odawa warriors launched the attack on the arriving Mohawk party as they travelled down the river, unsuspecting of the pending attack.
So swift were the Odawa that the Iroquois had no time to arm and position themselves in any defence.
Chief Sahgimah ordered them to end the bloody massacre so a message could be sent to the Iroqouis nation that would finally put an end to further warfare between the two groups. The remaining survivors were made to watch as the hundreds of dead were decapitated and the heads stuck on poles that stood along the edge of what would become the ski hills of the Blue Mountains, facing north, toward the land of the Ojibway.
The survivors were told to go home and tell of what they saw.
Through treaties, the Anishinaabe eventually gave up the land, but it is their history here that lies deep within Simcoe County.
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I have found The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario and The History of the Saugeen Indians, by Peter Schmalz and James Barry’s Georgian Bay: The Sixth Great Lake to be extremely helpful and recommend them to anyone who wishes to read further about the aboriginal history of this region.
