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Presqu’ile Provincial Park is the fifth-oldest park in Ontario. This park, located just south of Brighton, Ontario, on Highway 2, is 2,300 acres in size — 1,050 acres are covered in water and 1,250 acres are land. This French name means “almost an island.” It is a boot-shaped peninsula that juts out 10 kilometres (six miles) into Lake Ontario and was formed when the last of the great glaciers retreated from the Lake Ontario basin about 10,000 years ago. The furthest extension of the peninsula is a limestone island. Gull and High Bluff are two offshore islands to the southwest of the peninsula. An extensive cattail and open water marsh is located to the lee of the peninsula. High Bluff was once connected to Presqu’ile by a sand and gravel bar, but over the years it and Gull Island were both eroded and separated by the pounding waters of Lake Ontario. These two islands were designated as a Wilderness Area under the 1961 Wilderness Areas Act and are off-limits to visitors, because large colonies of gulls and terns nest here.

Presqu’ile itself has forests, marshes, and sand dunes that together support a wide diversity of animal and plant life. Birdwatching is the major attraction. A total of 318 species have been recorded within the park; 130 species are confirmed as breeders. They are among the highest bird totals in Ontario. Migrating waterfowl rest here in the spring on their way north, and sometimes a waterfowl viewing weekend is sponsored by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Back in 1787, the Mississaugas ceded this area of land to the government. Mississaugas, and other Native tribes before them, gathered here for an annual hunt and honoured this bird habitat as a very sacred place.

Once the government had taken sole ownership of the land, it announced that Presqu’ile would become the site of a proposed town called Newcastle. It was to be the main town for the new district of Northumberland and Durham counties. By 1804, the first public building, a court house, had been built and its first trial was scheduled — a murder trial.

The accused was an Ojibwa native charged with the murder of a fur trader near the settlement of Port Perry. Unbeknownst to all concerned, this trial was an omen of things to come.

On October 7, 1804, the schooner Speedy departed from York (Toronto) with the prisoner and several influential people who were to be at the trial. As fate would have it, the crew, passengers, and prisoner vanished. According to the stories, the Speedy had reached Presqu’ile on October 9 and was rounding the point when it floundered in a sudden snowstorm and sank without a trace — no survivors, no bodies, no ship, no flotsam, and no jetsam. In fact, no trace of the Speedy has ever been found despite numerous attempts by divers in the Presqu’ile waters. What could possibly have happened? Was it magic; was it a curse? (See the story about Port Perry for more on this strange incident.)

Like the Speedy, the district town of Newcastle also vanished. In 1805 the Government of Upper Canada abandoned their plans for Presqu’ile with an accompanying declaration that the designated townsite of Newcastle was not convenient.

In 1840 a lighthouse was built at the tip of the peninsula to guide boats to safety, since Presqu’ile offered one of the best harbours on Lake Ontario. Today, the lighthouse keeper’s quarters house a museum. After the disappearance of the Speedy and the cancellation of the town of Newcastle, Presqu’ile regained some prestige as a recreational centre. In 1905 construction of the Presqu’ile Hotel and some summer cottages ushered in the age of tourism.

The act of fate was a blessing in disguise when it stepped in to preserve this unusual, beautiful, and natural setting for recreation, this sanctuary where birds and people meet.