Wiikwemkoong Tourism continues to thrive each season

By Kathleen Imbert

WIIKWEMKOONG UNCEDED TERRITORY— Tourism in Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory flourishes all year long, organizing and promoting festivities in the community. From markets to tours, to fish derbies and demonstrating fish filleting— tourism has a vast cultural and economical impact on and off reserve.

Thursday is market day in front of the Tourist info kiosk on Wikwemikong Way. Luke Wassegijig, Tourism Manager and market organizer, welcomes merchants from all over Manitoulin Island to come sell their goods. Vegetables, baked and canned goods, meat products, and maple syrup are some of the fresh and local foodstuffs to be found.

The “Amishnabek” market, as it has come to be known, has Amish vendors from Tehkummah selling canned goods, meat products, and according to Wassegijig, the best doughnuts on the Island.

“They must be getting their [Return on Investment] because they keep coming back every week,” he noted on the now regular vendors. “The Wiky Market starts every year in May and continues till the snow starts flying.”

Authentic Indigenous experiences from May to October make visitors aware of the history and cultural life in Canada’s only officially Unceded territory, Wiikwemkoong. Tourism has created a mix of tours for schools and visitors to historic monuments and cultural hotspots in Wiikwemkoong such as storytelling events and artists’ studios visits. The tour also includes a traditional meal of game or fish and wild rice and traditional soups all made from scratch.

The Manitoulin Ice Showdown, once known as the Wiikwemkoong Ice Fishing Derby, a joint venture with Tourism and the Manitoulin Expositor, takes place every year on Lake Manitou and Manitowaning Bay. Last year’s first prize winner on Manitowaning Bay, Joshua Bisson, pulled in a 11.6lb rainbow trout.

Tourism constructed the two hiking natural trails in 2011 on Wiikwemkoong’s lands. The popular Bebamikawe memorial trail has two routes: the Warrior Trail oversees the North Channel and the La Cloche mountains making for a two-hour hike and the 4.3 km Three Fires Trail loop heads east towards Wiikwemkoong.

“There is an old homestead on the Warrior Trail and an old well where a plaque explains the site, giving a good feeling of history,” says Galen Trudeau, Trail Maintenance at Tourism.

Discovering Wiikwemkoong with Tourism gives a well-rounded visit exploring not only the lands and waters, but also the stories and legends of a unique Anishinabek people of the Three Fires Confederacy – Ojibwe, Odawa, and Pottawatomi.