Tiny, Ontario

The township comprises the communities of Ardmore Beach, Balm Beach, Belle-Eau-Claire Beach, Bluewater Beach, Cawaja Beach, Cedar Point, Clearwater Beach, Cove Beach, Crescent Beach, Coutenac Beach, Deanlea Beach, Dorion's Corner, East Tay Point, Edmore Beach, Georgian Bay Estates, Georgian Heights, Georgian Highlands, Georgian Sands Beach, Georgina Beach, Gibson, Ishpiming Beach, Kettle's Beach, Kingswood Acres, Lafontaine, Lafontaine Beach, Laurin, Mary Grove, Mountain View Beach, Nottawaga Beach, Ossossane Beach, Perkinsfield, Randolph, Rowntree Beach, Sandcastle Beach, Sandy Bay, Sawlog Bay, Silver Birch Beach, Sloane Point, Thunder Beach, Tiny Beach, Toanche, Wahnekewaning Beach, Wendake Beach, Woodland Beach, Wyebridge, Wyevale and Wymbolwood Beach.

Lafontaine

Tiny Township is located on the peninsula that separates Severn Sound and Nottawasaga Bay at the south end of Georgian Bay, and has a coastline of 70 kilometres (43 mi). It extends southward into the Wye River watershed. The municipality is home to Awenda Provincial Park on Georgian Bay at the north end, and the Tiny Marsh Provincial Wildlife Area, source of the Wye River, in the south.[3]

Tiny contains an artesian well that produces some of the purest spring water in the world.[4][5] Many residents were concerned that a proposed garbage dump over the aquifer would contaminate the water, and a series of protests achieved a one-year moratorium on the dump.[6] The dump's certificate of approval was later revoked by the province in 2010.[7]

The township was named in 1822 after a pet dog of Lady Sarah Maitland (1792–1873), wife of Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. Two other adjoining townships were also named for her pet dogs, Tay and Flos (now Springwater Township).[8]

Humans have occupied the area now known as Tiny Township for at least 11,000 years. Excavations in what is now Awenda Provincial Park in the 1970s uncovered four archaeological sites dating from the Paleo-Indian period.[9] For much of the Pre-Contact period, the Indigenous peoples of the area would have been hunter-gathers living mostly in small family groupings which would come together in larger groupings during particular times of the year to collect resources such as fish or berries.[10]

Around 1100 C.E., agriculture was introduced to south Central Ontario, with people growing corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and sunflowers. This led to the development of villages centred around longhouses. By 1600 C.E., the five nations of the Huron-Wendat Confederacy had established their villages in the territory they called Wendake, a part of which included what we now call Tiny Township.[10]

Starting in 1615, French Catholic missionaries, first Recollets and then, in 1625, Jesuits, began proselytizing among the Huron-Wendat.[11] The Jesuits built the mission Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and wrote extensively about the Huron-Wendat culture. In 1636, Jesuit missionary Jean de Brebeuf observed and wrote about The Huron Feast of the Dead which occurred at the Huron-Wendat village of Ossossane which was located in what is now Tiny Township.

Diseases brought by the French in this period had a devastating effect on the Huron-Wendat. It is estimated that circa 1600, just prior to European contact, the total population of Wendake was between 20 000 and 25 000 people. However, a series of epidemics between 1634 and 1642 reduced the population to about 9000 people. Attacks by the Haudenosaunee in 1648 and 1649 dispersed the Wendat people, with most traditionalists joining the Haudenosaunee, while others joined with the related, neighbouring Petun people. The remaining Huron-Wendat who followed the missionaries fled to French Territory.[11]

In the 1700s, as the threat from the Haudenosaunee waned, Ojibwe people began to move back into the area. In 1798, the Ojibwe (Chippeway) and the British signed Penetanguishene Bay Purchase turning some of the land which would become Tiny Township over to the British who soon after established a naval base at Penetanguishene. A subsequent treaty in 1815, the Lake Simcoe–Lake Huron Purchase turned over the remaining part of the land which would become Tiny Township.

By the mid-19th century, families from Quebec began moving to the Tiny Township area for the cheap and fertile land to farm. The Baldwin Act of 1850 established the Corporation of the United Townships of Tiny and Tay. In 1868, the townships were separated through a Simcoe County by-law.[3]

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Tiny had a population of 12,966 living in 5,434 of its 9,699 total private dwellings, a change of 10% from its 2016 population of 11,787. With a land area of 335.05 km² (129.36 sq mi), it had a population density of 38.7/km² (100.2/sq mi) in 2021.[12]

Sandy beach on Nottawasaga Bay near Lafontaine

The township's fire protection services are provided by the Township of Tiny Fire and Emergency Services. The service has a complement of 95 firefighters operating 15 pieces of fire apparatus from five stations located in Lafontaine, Wyevale, North West Basin, Wyebridge and Woodland Beach. The township falls within the jurisdiction of the Ontario Provincial Police and is policed by members of the Southern Georgian Bay and Huronia West detachments.

• Damien Robitaille, Musician
• Glenn Howard, Curler

• List of townships in Ontario
• List of francophone communities in Ontario

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• Official website