Cognashene

Cognashene lies on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, among rocky islands and sheltered channels. Its Ojibwe name has been interpreted as the land of porcupines and blueberries. The southeastern bay was home to Wendat communities, who cultivated maize, beans and squash as well as fishing and hunting. In the 1640s epidemics and Haudenosaunee attacks devastated their villages; by the eighteenth century Ojibwe communities were established in the region, hunting, fishing and gathering along the shore.