This is my attempt to document my strange fascination with (and Cities: Skylines recreation of) Cockburn Island, a very real island/township in the Great Lakes. It's a part of my fledgeling "Forgotten Southern Ontario" project.

I initially took interest in the island when a friend of mine was considering buying a cottage there (and even took a trip out by float plane). The cost of land at the time was super low, so I started wondering if it would make sense to look into buying a cottage myself. My friend and I have given up (for now) on our cottage plans, but the more tidbits I read about the history of the island (information seems to be scarce online), the more I started to get pulled in.

Before reverting to a cottage community with a year-round permanent population of one (rounded down to zero by statistics Canada), the island used to be a place where people built their lives and careers. Then the ferry service was cancelled and everything started to fade away. While human activity on the island continues, it is a shadow of what it used to be. Studying that shadow on Google Maps/Ontario Topographic Maps has me yearning to visit in person and learn more.

The first humans to inhabit Cockburn Island were the peoples of Canada's First Nations. Looking up the Zhiibaahaasing on Wikipedia, they were (and still are) a combination of Odawa and Ojibwe who's primary community (at least today) is located on neighbouring Manitoulin Island. But I find it really sad (and telling) that the only information on Wikipedia beyond the basics is:

"There was a significant amount of controversy surrounding a stockpile of more than one million tires within the Zhiibaahaasing First Nation. Cockburn Island Tire Recycling planned to process the tires, but due to an equipment malfunction, tires were stockpiled while the facility was not operating. Many area residents were concerned about the health and environmental consequences should there be a tire fire. In September, 2006, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada agreed to provide funding for the removal of the tires."

So here's a list of questions and follow-ups I plan to try and find answers to, and I'll update this site as I get more information.

1. Is Zhiibaahaasing a more modern name for the people living there today?
   1. Were they just considered (by themselves and others) a combination of Odawa and Ojibwe for most of history?
   2. Or have they been calling themselves Zhiibaahaasing since before european's arived?
   3. Or something in between?
2. Has there been any archeology performed on Cockburn Island?
   1. How far back do we have evidence for human activity on the island?
   2. Were there people living there before the Zhiibaahaasing? (Sort of related to question 1)
   3. Are the Zhiibaahaasing their descendents?
   4. Has Cockburn Island always been a "secondary" community for the local first peoples (with the primary being on Manitoulin Island)?
   5. Which parts of the island were historically inhabited by first peoples?
   6. How did the first peoples of Cockburn Island live?)
      1. What did they eat?
      2. Were they hunter-gatherers? Or famers? Or both?
3. How have european colonists effected the local first peoples?
   1. Is there a history of trade and/or friendship on the island? Conflict? A mix of all of those?
      1. How has it changed over time?
   2. It seems strange that the Zhiibaahaasing reservation was on the western side of Cockburn Island when their other community is on Manitoulin Island to the east. Was the western coast predominantly where they lived historically or were they pushed into that corner?
   3. Wikipedia seems to indicate that the island reservation was dissolved because it consistently had no permanent population. Did the Zhiibaahaasing actually stop using the land?
      1. Did they approve of the island reservation being dissolved and added to the township?
      2. Were they compensated (and fairly) for that land?