#2306 "Parry Sound Reflections"

This granite point had been scraped clear of soil by the last ice sheets that at one time were one to two kilometers deep above the Parry Sound Archipelago. Nature is resilient though. These small pines still thrive and prosper in the cracks of the granite. They are certainly much older than their diminutive size might suggest. There are also many colours and shapes to be found in the cracks of those rocks.

A friend invited me to his cottage so that he could reveal the real Parry Sound and the 30,000 Islands of the Georgian Bay Archipelago. Archipelago is a fancy geographical term for a chain or group of islands scattered across a body of water. Canine Cove on Parry Island was home base for a few days and I painted and explored with my friend.

Tom Thomson and members of the Group of Seven painted in the area for a while around 1914. Parry Sound slumped a bit in economic activity shortly after World War I when J.R. Booth built the rival town of Depot Harbour on nearby Parry Island. An accidental fire destroyed the entire town of Depot Harbour on August 14, 1945.

The body of water that gives the town its name was surveyed and named by Captain Henry Bayfield in the 19th century. Captain Bayfield named the area in honour of the Arctic explorer Sir William Edward Parry. The modern town site was established In 1857 near the Ojibwa village of Wasauksing which means "shining shore" which was located at the mouth of the Seguin River.

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