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One of Ontario's most arresting historical attractions is Sainte-Marie among the Hurons (late May to mid-Oct daily 10am-5pm; $9.75), the carefully researched and beautifully maintained site of a crucial episode in Canadian history. It's located 5km east of Midland beside Hwy 12 - and although there are no buses, the taxi fare from Midland is only $6. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain returned to Canada convinced that the only way to make the fur trade profitable was by developing alliances with native hunters. The Huron were the obvious choice, as they already acted as go-betweens in the exchange of corn, tobacco and hemp from the bands to the south and west of their territory, for the pelts collected to the north. In 1611, having participated in Huron attacks on the Iroqouis, Champlain cemented the alliance by a formal exchange of presents. His decision to champion one tribe against another - and particularly his gifts of firearms to his allies - disrupted the balance of power amongst the native societies of the St Lawrence and Great Lakes area and set the stage for the destruction of Sainte-Marie almost forty years later. Meanwhile, the Jesuits , who established their centre of operations at Sainte-Marie in 1639, had begun to undermine social cohesion within the Huron community itself. The priests succeeded in converting a substantial minority of the Huron - by then enfeebled by three European sicknesses, measles, smallpox and influenza - and thus divided them into two camps, Christian and non-Christian. Furthermore, in 1648 the Dutch on the Hudson River began to sell firearms to the Iroquois, who launched a full-scale invasion of Huronia in March 1649, slaughtering their enemies as they moved in on Sainte-Marie. Fearing for their lives, the Jesuits of Sainte-Marie burnt their settlement and fled. Eight thousand Hurons went with them; most starved to death on Christian Island, in Georgian Bay, but a few made it to Quebec. During the campaign two Jesuit priests, fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant , were captured at the outpost of Saint-Louis, near present-day Victoria Harbour, where they were bound to the stake and tortured, as per standard Iroquois practice: the image of Catholic bravery and Indian cruelty lingered in the minds of French-Canadians long after the sufferings of the Hurons had been forgotten. A visit to Sainte-Marie starts in the reception centre with an audiovisual show that provides some background information before the screen lifts dramatically away to reveal the painstakingly restored mission site. There are 25 wooden buildings here, divided into two sections: the Jesuit area with its watchtowers, chapel, forge, farm buildings complete with pigs, cows and hens, living quarters and well-stocked garden; and the native area, including a hospital and a pair of bark-covered long houses - one for Christian converts, the other for heathens. Fairly spick-and-span today, it takes some imagination to see the long houses as they appeared to Father Lalemant, who saw "? a miniature picture of hell ? on every side naked bodies, black and half-roasted, mingled pell-mell with the dogs ? you will not reach the end of the cabin before you are completely befouled with soot, filth and dirt". Costumed guides act out the parts of Hurons and Europeans with great gusto, answering questions and demonstrating crafts and skills, though they show a certain reluctance to eat the staple food of the region, sagamite, a porridge of cornmeal seasoned with rotten fish. The grave in the simple wooden church of St Joseph between the Christian and native areas is the place where the flesh of Brebeuf and Lalemant was interred after the Jesuits had removed the bones for future use as reliquaries. A path leads from the site to the excellent museum , which traces the story of the early exploration of Canada with maps and displays on such subjects as fishing and the fur trade, seen in the context of contemporary European history. This leads into a section on the history of the missionaries in New France, with particular reference to Sainte-Marie. Information on the archeology of the site follows: its whereabouts was always known as the Jesuits had all the documentation in Rome, even though local settlers helped themselves to almost every chunk of stone - from what was known locally as "the old Catholic fort" - during the nineteenth century. Excavations began on the site in the 1940s and work is still in progress. The eight Jesuits who were killed in Huronia between 1642 and 1649 are commemorated by the Martyrs' Shrine (mid-May to mid-Oct daily 9am-9pm; $2), a twin-spired, 1920s church which overlooks Sainte-Marie from the other side of Hwy 12. Blessed by Pope John Paul II in 1984 - when he bafflingly remarked that it was "a symbol of unity of faith in a diversity of cultures" - the church, along with the assorted shrines and altars in its grounds, is massively popular with pilgrims. Inside, the transepts hold a number of saintly reliquaries, most notably the skull of Brebeuf, and a stack of crutches discarded by healed pilgrims. Back across Hwy 12 and next door to Sainte-Marie among the Hurons is one last attraction, the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre (daily 10am-4pm, 6pm from late June to Aug; $5), whose footpaths explore a patch of wetland and the surrounding woodland.
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