Gargantua Islands

Our first visit to the islands of Gargantua happened during our cross Canada canoe journey. Cape Gargantua’s primitive beauty was unforgettable. The dark volcanic rock pockmarked with patterns easily transformed into faces. Cliffs and caves overhung with ancient cedars. Lake Superior Provincial Park’s common names for the Devil’s Chair, and a larger island to the south, Devil’s Warehouse Island, were named by overzealous missionaries eager to abolish the Anishnabe’s most spiritual connections.  But stories of Nanabijou who rested here after leaping across Lake Superior from Thunder Bay, are being revived and re-told again by the people whose cultural heritage is rooted in this place.  So when these islands were poised to be sold by private owners, the Lake Superior Watershed Conservancy was able enact a permanent conservation outcome to see these islands remain wild for all time.