The Legend of the Lafontaine Wolf
(The Story of a Francophone Community in Ontario)           

              Half legendary, half historic, the fantastic story of the Lafontaine wolf was written by the Reverend Father Thomas Marchildon and published by the Société historique du Nouvel-Ontario in 1955. The legend explains the development of a Franco-Ontarian community. At the turn of the century, French settlers in the Lafontaine area were not yet united in a community as such but were in fact a few disparate groups. At least four different groups of French Canadians settled this portion of the Huronia region located 160 kilometres North of Toronto.

              As early as 1829, the first settlers, who were Métis families, descendants of the Voyageurs, came from Drummond Island to take up residence in the Lafontaine area. It was not until the 1840's that three other groups of settlers began to arrive from Quebec. They originated from four different counties in the lower Saint-Lawrence (Champlain, Joliette, Vaudreuil and Soulanges) to till the lands of Huronia. The first wave of settlers selected the most fertile tracts of land, while others had settled for whatever lands remained. Some farmed the land while others became fishermen or lumberjacks.

             They all shared the same French language and were members of the Roman Catholic faith but each group was wary of the others.

             Then, one fine day near the end of March, there came a stranger. Capitalizing on the fact that these isolated settlers were so bent on ignoring one another, he decided to stay...