arrived to offer her services as a teacher.
On October 15, 1879, the leading businessman of the community, Senator Billa Flint, changed the name of York River to Bancroft to honour his wife, Phoebe Bancroft.
Although gold was discovered by Marcus Herbert Powell south of the town on August 15, 1866, on John Richardson’s farm in Eldorado, it wasn’t until 1897 that Bancroft gained attention and fame for its mineral deposits. In October of that year, R. Bradshaw discovered free-surface gold and gold fever struck Bancroft. One of the biggest winners in the draw was Mrs. J.B. Cleak’s chicken. One fine day in 1902 the bird was escorted to the chopping block and, strange as it seems, Mrs. Cleak discovered a gold nugget in the pullet’s crop.
Bancroft became famous for its earth minerals. Because ancient glaciers had moved soil and rock to gradually expose the very heart of volcanic mountains, Bancroft was set to become the mineral capital of Canada. Approximately 1,600 minerals have been identified to date.
In 1960 a mineral society was formed and the first rock show was held. An annual Rockhound Gemboree was the result, and Canada’s largest mineral and gem show is still held each year from Thursday to Sunday before the civic holiday Monday in August. People can discover minerals firsthand in the countryside by way of a guided mineral trip any Tuesday or Thursday during July and August.
Nevertheless, for many, the most historic and sacred site in Bancroft remains Eagle’s Nest. It is a place of mystery and beauty. It was here that the great eagles nested and here that the Natives prayed. No one is quite sure when the eagles left. What is recorded is the incident of 1883. Screams from outdoors brought Mr. and Mrs. Gaebel outside to witness a great eagle trying to carry off a small child who had been playing. They attacked the eagle with a broom and rake before it finally gave up its prey. A decision was made by the Gaebels and their neighbours to rid the village of eagles. Eggs were removed from the nest, the eagles disappeared temporarily, and there were no sightings again until 1902. In January 1918, the Bancroft Times recorded that a young man named Sararas had shot an eagle measuring two metres (six feet) from wing tip to wing tip. He displayed it at the butcher shop of the game warden, James McCaw, who attempted to sell it. In the 1930s the tree in which the eagles had nested toppled to the ground.
Nature is as rugged as ever in Bancroft and, with or without eagles at Eagle’s Nest, the vista is beautiful and the minerals are as abundant as ever.
The Bay Monster and the Shadow
Folklore, myths, and legends begin as traditional narratives, but over time, as they are told and retold, stories tend to become archetypes — symbols for the truths of our existence, the external and internal, our landscapes and ourselves.
To believe in these stories was to experience the symbolic power of the supernatural, which, contrary to much modern thought, was rife with knowledge and valuable lessons. These stories are still here with us. All you have to do is feel their truth ... and see.
A ready connection our sacred landscape and the knowledge and power of life around us is through the stories of First Nations, particularly the stories passed down locally from our own early Natives.
“They [the Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island] lived much nearer to nature than most white men, and they looked with a different eye on the trees and the rocks, the water and the sky,” wrote Diamond Jenness of the National Museum of Canada in 1929. “They were less materialistic, more spiritually minded, than Europeans, for they did not picture any great chasm separating mankind from the rest of creation, but interpreted everything around them in much the same terms as they interpreted their own selves.”
While researching for his report, titled The Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island, Their Social and Religious Life, Jenness learned that —according to the Ojibwa — man consisted of three parts, a corporeal body (wiyo) that decays and disappeared after death, a soul (udjitchog) that travels after death to the land of souls in the west, ruled by Nanibush, and a shadow (udjibbom) that roams about on earth but generally remains near the grave.
In Jenness’s words, “The soul is located in the heart and is capable of travelling outside the body for brief periods, although if it remains separate too long the body will die ... The soul is the intelligent part of man’s being. The soul is also the seat of the will.”
The shadow is slightly more indefinite than the soul. It is located in the brain, but like the soul, the shadow often operates apart from the body. Jenness elaborates:
In life, it [the shadow] is the ‘eyes’ of the soul, as it were, awakening the latter to perception and knowledge ... When a man is travelling, his shadow goes before or behind him. Normally it is in front, nearer to his destination. There are times when a man feels that someone is watching him, or is near him, although he can see no one, it is his shadow that is warning him, trying to awaken his soul to perceive the danger.
The shadow is invisible, but sometimes it allows itself to be seen with the same appearance as the body. This is why you often think you see someone who is actually miles away.
In 1929, Wasauksing (Parry Island) resident Francis Pegahmagabow shared this story about the shadow: “My two boys met me at the wharf yesterday evening and accompanied me to my house. Sometime before our arrival, my sister-in-law looked out of the window and saw the elder boy pass by. It was really his shadow that she saw, not the boy himself, for we must have been nearly a mile away at the time.”
Many Ojibwa living on Parry Island in the 1920s still believed that all objects had life, and life was synonymous with power. Just as man’s power comes from his intelligence, his soul, so does the power of the animal, the tree, and the stone.
Mr. Pegahmagabow explained, “Long ago the manidos or supernatural powers gathered somewhere and summoned a few Indians through dreams, giving them power to fly through the air to the meeting place ... The Indians [their souls] travelled thither, and the manidos taught them about the supernatural world and the powers they had received from the Great Spirit. Then, they sent the Indians home again.”
The Parry Island Ojibwa found authority for their belief in a world of supernatural beings around them, beings who are part of the natural order of the universe no less than man himself, whom they resemble in the possession of intelligence and emotions. Like man, they too are male or female and in some cases have families of their own. Some are friendly to the Native peoples, others are hostile. According to the museum report of 1929, there are manidos everywhere, or there were until the white man came, for today, the Indians say, most of them have moved away.
According to Jenness, “Occasionally, the Parry Islanders speak of a Maji Manido. Bad Spirit, referring either to some lesser being malevolent to man, most commonly the great serpent or water spirit. Apparently, the chief enemies to man are the water-serpents, which can travel underground and steal away a man’s soul. If lightning strikes a tree near a native person’s wigwam it is the thunder-manido driving away some water-spirit that is stealing through the ground to attack the man or his family. The leader of all water-serpents is Nzagima.”
One needed to be very careful to protect the soul, Jenness points out. “Until quite recently, and perhaps even now in certain families, adolescent boys and girls were compelled to fast for a period in order to obtain a vision and blessing from some manido,” he noted. “Parents gave their children special warning against a visitation from the great serpent, which might appear to them in the form of a man and offer its aid and blessing. A boy or girl who dreamed they received a visit from a snake should reject its blessing and inform their father, who would bid their return and seek a second visitation, since the evil serpent never repeats its overtures once they have been rejected. If then, a snake appears in another dream
