THE HURONS OF LORETTE 



The French travellers and missionaries who explored the 

 basin of the St. Tawrence at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 centur}^ found, within that vast area, two distinct races of 

 aborigines : 



(i) The Algonquins, nomadic hunters, roving over the 

 lower valley and the northern highlands ; 



(2) The Huron-Iroquois, of more sedentat}' habits, with 

 some development of agriculture, a better defined and more solid 

 organization, settled in the region of the three great lakes Ont- 

 ario, Erie, Huron. ^ 



The Hurons numbered twenty thousand people or more, and 

 their villages covered the land from the shores of L,ake Simcoe to 

 those of Georgian Baj-. It is from this point, that after its over- 

 throw by the Iroquois, a portion of the Huron nation repaired to 

 Quebec, and finally took root at Torette,''' where they still form a 

 separate group. 



Throughout some northern townships of Simcoe County, re- 

 mains of Huron occupation have been for sixty years past, and 

 are still at the present time being found : ancient village sites are 

 discovered, bone pits are brought to light, fragments of primitive 

 pottery are unearthed. f Meanwhile, at lyorette, the observer is 

 confronted with debris of a very different character : social tra- 

 ditions still persistent and to quite an extent impressing the minds 

 and moulding the lives of French-speaking descendants of the 

 primitive Hurons. 



*On the map attached, the location of Lorette is shown by the sign x. 



fA. F. Hunter, Sites of Huron Villag-es, Appeqdix, to the Report of the 

 Minister of Education, Ontario, 1898, 1899. 



