day 6 - wawa, ontario

Googlemaps:  Wawa Giant Wild Goose

When the first Europeans traveled into this area, the Ojibway tribe used the word "Wawa" which meant "clear water."  Somewhere along the way, it was mistranslated to mean "wild goose" and it stuck.  There is a giant wild goose monument in Wawa.

Wawa also marks the midway point of the Trans-Canada Highway. 

In 1897, there was a brief gold rush in Wawa which soon ended.  When they were mining for gold, however, they discovered lots of iron ore.  Some of the samples made their way to Francis Hector Clergue was an entrepreneur in Maine who saw the potential of forming an iron empire in Sault-Ste-Marie.  Francis Clergue went on to be the founder of St. Mary's Paper, Algoma Steel, and the Algoma Central Railway which was built from Sault-Ste-Marie to Hearst.