Among the thousands of islands in Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay are several large ones quite different from their granite, pine and cedar neighbours to the north. One of them is the oddly shaped and mysteriously named Giant’s Tomb Island.
“The Tomb”, as I have known it all my life, lies roughly north-south near the southeast mainland. It is nearly five kilometres long and two km wide, has a low shoreline of huge boulders on the west and sandy beaches on the east. Set back from the shore is a steep flat-topped mound running down the centre.
Ever since my early childhood the distant profile of the Giant’s Tomb has been embedded in my brain, and the island seemed to call me to come and explore it. When I learned the legend of its name it became more beckoning: the hump is said the be the last resting place of a giant named Kitchikewana.
The story goes that long, long ago Kitchikewana’s fervent love for a young maiden was spurned. In his anguish he strode into the water to vent his sorrow. His great arms flailed and thrashed into the shore. He grasped huge clods of the land and hurled them out into the bay, creating its many islands and leaving the five inlets we now know as Penetanguishene, Midland, Hog, Sturgeon and Matchedash. Finally, totally exhausted, he lay down on the nearest island and died. As nature gradually buried his remains, the hump in the middle was created. And so we call it the Giant’s Tomb.
Today most of the island is part of Awenda Provincial Park on the adjacent mainland. A portion of the north end is protected by the Georgian Bay Land Trust. Where a lighthouse keeper and his family once manned a beacon for shipping on the south end, it has been replaced by an automated light.
When I was a boy eighty years ago, mention of an expedition to the Tomb was enough to quicken a youngster’s pulse. Why? Because we would be going in a big boat because of the open water and to a kid who loved boats that was an adventure in itself. Then there were the beaches along the east shore to swim at and explore. After the adults anchored the boat offshore, we kids would drop over the side to dive and play all the way to the beach.
Sometimes the big boat would take us around to the more formidable west side of the island where huge boulder beds could be seen through the crystal-clear water, and some of the largest smallmouth bass that I have ever seen might be lured aboard. This shore was strictly for serious fishing. No gentle beach here, just big rocks from south to north.
During these outings, there was always a sense of mystery about the big uninhabited island. What was it really like deep among those densely growing trees? Did anyone ever go in there? Did they come back out? What about the hump that supposedly covered the remains of Kitchikewana? What would it be like to climb up it, and what would we discover there?
