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The most westerly town on Severn Sound, homely PENETANGUISHENE - "place of the rolling white sands" in Ojibwa - was the site of one of Ontario's first European settlements, a Jesuit mission founded in 1639, then abandoned in 1649 following the burning of Sainte-Marie . Europeans returned some 150 years later to establish a trading station where local Ojibwa exchanged pelts for food and metal tools. However, the settlement remained insignificant until just after the War of 1812, when the British built a naval dockyard that attracted shopkeepers and suppliers from both French and British communities. Today Penetanguishene is one of the few places in southern Ontario that maintains a bilingual tradition. The town's primary thoroughfare, Main Street , is a pleasant place for a stroll, its shops and bars installed behind sturdy red-brick facades. It's the general atmosphere that appeals rather than any particular sight, but the Centennial Museum , 13 Burke St (May-Oct Mon-Sat 9.30am-4.30pm, Sun noon-4.30pm; $2.50), a couple of minutes' walk east of Main Street along Beck Boulevard, is worth a quick visit. The museum occupies the old general store and offices of the Beck lumber company, whose yards once stretched right along the town's waterfront. The company was founded in 1865 by Charles Beck, a German immigrant who made himself immensely unpopular by paying his men half their wages in tokens that were only redeemable at his stores. The museum has several displays on the Beck lumber company, including examples of these "Beck dollars", and there's also a fascinating selection of old photographs featuring locals at work and play in the town and its forested surroundings. Doubling back, it's a short walk to the jetty at the north end of Main Street, from where there are enjoyable, three-hour cruises of the southern stretches of Georgian Bay and its myriad islands - known collectively as the Thirty Thousand Islands (mid-June to Aug 1-2 cruises daily; May, early June, Sept & early Oct occasional sailings; $15; tel 705/549-7795 or 1-800/363-7447, www.georgianbaycruises.com ).
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