Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was a short-lived attempt to establish a first French mission-settlement in Wendake (“a land apart”), the ancestral land of the Huron-Wendat People, in what is now Ontario. From 1639 to 1649, Sainte-Marie was a thriving French community. When the mission failed after a decade, it was abandoned and burnt to the ground.
The site remained forgotten for two centuries. In 1920, the Government of Canada recognized it as a National Historic Site and the buildings were reconstructed in 1964. Today, Sainte-Marie among the Hurons tells its fascinating story to all who take the time to visit it in Midland, a two-hour drive north of Toronto, on the shores of Georgian Bay.
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