Audio Excerpt

 If you head just south a couple of kilometers of here, you'll find one of Canada's most utilized lakes...a BIG lake--in fact if you were heading to Muskoka, you been driving around it the whole time! 

 

Heading to the Greater Toronto Area?...well buckle up, you'll be driving around it for the next hour! It's the 4th largest lake in the province. And when I say most utilized, I mean it. The dinosaurs used to vacation there when it was part of an even bigger lake, Lake Algonquin! 

 

I bet Scotty, the world's biggest T-Rex and his pals had a cottage somewhere in the area! In the not-so-distant-past, scientists say that Lake Simcoe was frequented by native people, who hunted its shores and fished its waters. In fact, ancient Hurons drove stakes into the "narrows" where lake Simcoe discharges into Lake Couchinching, to create fish weirs.  

 

Radiocarbon dating says surviving stakes reveal that the weirs at The Narrows were in use more than 4,000 years ago!   The Mohawk people called the area tkaronto which means  "where there are trees standing in the water."   It's spelled all lower case, t k a r o n t o.

 

The first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe named the lake after his father Captain John Simcoe of the Royal Navy.  Now it's a place where people come to vacation, fish, hunt--relax...told you it was well utilized!