Lake Superior Provincial Park

Lake Superior Provincial Park is one of the largest provincial parks in Ontario, covering about 1550km2 along the northeastern shores of Lake Superior between Sault Ste. Marie in Algoma District, and Wawa in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Ontario Highway 17 (at this point part of the Trans-Canada Highway) now runs through the park. When the park was established by Ontario in 1944, there was no road access.HistoryTraces of ancient volcanic activity can be seen in rock outcrops near Red Rock Lake and several other sites. For more than 2000 years, this was long an area of occupation by various cultures of indigenous peoples. The oldest artifacts found here date to approximately 500 BC.At Agawa Rock, near the mouth of the Agawa River, there are pictographs created by the early Ojibwe people of this region. The figures are painted on the rock with a mixture of powdered hematite and animal fats and are estimated to be 150–400 years old. The records are visual representations of both historical events and legendary figures.Selwyn Dewdney was the first scholarly figure to discover the pictographs. The first written description of these pictographs was published in 1851 by American ethnologist, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. As United States Indian agent in Sault Ste. Marie, he conducted extensive studies about the Ojibwe people, aided by his wife Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, who was half-Ojibwe and the daughter of a major fur trader in the city.