Point Petre Is a Magnet for Visitors

O U R   N A T U R A L   H E R I T A G E

 POINT PETRE IS A MAGNET FOR VISITORS

Thursday, September 03, 2009 

If someone were to approach you and ask about ‘ponds’ in Prince Edward County, you can almost bet they have lived in Newfoundland. They will be quick to inform you that in Newfoundland, a ‘lake’ is something that happens when you have a hole in your boot!

Similarly, it is easy to determine whether or not someone is from ‘away’, by how they pronounce Point Petre. As the story goes, earlier maps depicted St. Peter’s Bay, described as being south and a little east of Little Sandy Bay. Point Peter would thus be the southern arm of St. Peter’s Bay. At some point the spelling was transposed to become Point Petre, and that was a long time ago indeed, as maps of the 1800s had already established the current spelling. 

However one chooses to pronounce it, Point Petre has collected a potpourri of stories involving both joy and anguish, and continues to attract the curious and the adventurous.

Some describe Point Petre as a place of magical energy and spiritual cleansing. Doubtless this is why a recording company chose, with no hesitation, to record two sounds of nature CDs at this remote location, capturing the true essence of Point Petre. It is a favourite destination of artists and photographers and especially star gazers. Speaking from a vantage point just east of Point Petre, one Kingston astronomer stated, “Looking south over Lake Ontario, Point Petre looks every bit as dark as Nirvana.”   And that’s what star gazers like.

Point Petre is situated within the infamous Marysburgh Vortex, a place of anomalous activity where missing ships and aircraft have fuelled theories of paranormal explanations. The treacherous waters around Point Petre prompted the building of a 19 metre high lighthouse in 1833. However, that lighthouse was unceremoniously destroyed amid considerable debate in the 1960s, and replaced with the current structure, a slightly shorter cylindrical tower in 1967. The new tower stands on the grounds of a meteorological research station.

History abounds here, for the land around Point Petre had been used as an artillery range since 1938, and the area continued in that role with the formation of Royal Canadian School of Artillery. Point Petre was chosen as a site for a series of miniature test versions of the Avro Arrow.  The limestone point of land is also a transmitter site for the Military Aeronautical Communications System based at CFB Trenton.

Where  mortar, recoilless rifle and anti-tank rocket training once took place, today the property is a provincial wildlife area where occasional remnants of its past life can be found among the dogwoods and red cedars that predominate. Narrow gravel roads with names like Army Reserve Road bespeak of this earlier time, and side roads leading to the lake are reserved only for the brave at heart. However, if you can reach its interior and the associated wetlands, former pastures and sparse woodlands, it is a place apart. A place where gulls chatter and herons nest, field sparrows and towhees project their songs across abandoned fields. As one wildlife researcher once stated, “I was there for a full day and saw nary a soul.”

Pronounce it Point Pee-ter or Point Pee-tree. The corruption of its name has not diminished the perpetual appeal of its rocky shores, nor its plethora of spring wildflowers, wildlife and photographic opportunities. Since the day mid-Victorian artists referred to it as “Pointe Pétreux”, it has, in fact, contributed admirably to Prince Edward County’s natural heritage.

This is the fourteenth  in a series of columns by Terry Sprague on the natural heritage of Prince Edward County, sponsored by the Prince Edward Stewardship Council. For more information, check out their website at http://www.ontariostewardship.org .