#mnjikaning

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"INDIAN SWEARS SEA SERPENT PLAYS IN LAKE COUCHICHING," Toronto Star. July 4, 1934. Page 18. ---- Rowing Over From Rama Early in Morning He Saw "Monster" 16 Feet Long, He Says Reported Six Years Ago ==== Orillia, July 4. Joseph Stinson, 60-year-old Indian from the Ojibway band on the Rama reserve, came for ward with a story to-day that a sea serpent inhabits the waters of Lake Couchiching.

In an excited and hurried manner, hesitating only occasionally for breath. Stinson told of how he had encountered a "sea monster" measuring more than sixteen feet in length when he was rowing across the lake from Rama early in the morning. "I thought it was a dead-head or some-thing when I first caught a glimpse of it floating toward the deep water off the shore from Chief Island," the Indian related after repeatedly insisting when reporters looked doubtful that his story was "the absolute truth."

Stinson said it was about 5.30 in the morning when he set out for Orillia on his eventful trip. The water was rough and he headed his boat toward Lehman's Point directly across the lake from the reserve. It was after he got around Chief Island that he was suddenly startled, he said, by a "strange sight."

"This dead-head was gliding slowly along the water about 100 yards from shore. It was heading toward the middle of the lake. Suddenly it shot up out of the water and instead of a head it revealed itself as a monster of at least sixteen feet in length," Stinson asserted.

"I became a little excited when I saw it jump," the Indian admitted, "for I didn't have a club or anything to protect myself with except an oar. By this time the serpent was about 50 yards from the boat. It was not making toward me. After the first bit of excitement was over I stood up in the boat and continued to stare."

Some excitement was stirred up in town half a dozen years ago when a fisherman reported seeing a monster but although a thorough search was made the "monster" could not be located.

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"FIVE YEARS' SENTENCE FOR ASSAULT ON INDIAN," Toronto Globe. September 10, 1913. Page 7. ---- TWO MEN ATTACKED BIGWIND, NEARLY KILLING HIM, AND ROBBED HIM. ---- (Special Despatch to The Globe.) Whitby. Sept. 3.--Found guilty of assaulting and robbing John Bigwind, an Indian of Rama township, near Washago, on August 11, Joseph O'Leary was last night sentenced to five years in Kingston Penitentiary. and his companion, Archibald Scott, was remanded for a week by Judge McGillivray.

The two men, being aware that $27 was in the possession of the Indian, overtook him on the railway track near Washago, and, after frightfully beating and kicking him, appropriated the money. Thinking him dead of dying, they threw his body into clump of bushes and immediately unconcernedly returned to the village. Bigwind, stunned and bleeding, stumbled into Washago shortly afterwards and laid information about the assault. He identified the two men, who were at once arrested.

O'Leary has a record of previous theft. Scott, who claims that he recently came from Winnipeg, will remain in jail here until the Crown investigates his record.

[Scott was given a term in the Central Prison. O'Leary had been in Calgary Jail and the Central Prison himself. He was born in Lindsay, was a teamster, and was 29 with many scars from work related injuries. He was convict #F-640 at Kingston Penitentiary and worked as a stone pile inmate. He was a 'bad' prisoner, with over 20 reports for infractions of the rules, assaults on other inmates, trafficking, insulting officers and general insubordination. This included in February 1914 being moved to the high security segregation unit in the Prison of Isolation and again in June; 7 days in solitary in June, another stint in solitary in October, another in February 1915, again in August, and the loss of 20 days remission over several reports that year. In 1916 he went back to solitary for five days. Interestingly, his wife wrote the prison in June 1914, asking about his health and why he had not written, and the warden replied "he is getting along well, and working almost every day." Eventually, he became a teamster in the prison stable, was not reported again, and was released in April 1918.]

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“Indian Constable Held as Burglar,” Border CIties Star. December 8, 1932. Page 10. ---- ORILLIA, Ont., Dec. 8. - Christopher Anderson, Indian constable on the Rama Reserve, and his assistant, John Shilling, appeared before Magistrate Daniel McCaughrin, in the Reserve court today charged with breaking and entering. The case has been adjourned since December 2.

The charge was preferred against them by Julia Grenick, who lives on the Reserve.

According to Constable Anderson and his aide, they were searching for a white man, whom they believed was trespassing, and in the course of their search had entered the abode of the complainant, which they did peacefully and without interference.

The woman's version of the affair is different, and, as a consequence, the above charge was laid.

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“Warring Factions Are Half-Breeds, Old Chief Says,” Toronto Star. July 24, 1931. Page 17. ---- Veteran Tribal Leader Declares Few Bull-Blooded Indians Are Left --- BELITTLES THE FEUD ---- Special to The Star Orillia, July 24 - With mutterings of tar and feathers and the stirring up of old differences among the redmen at Rama still creating a brooding atmosphere on the reserve, where Chief Alder Yorke and Johnny George have split the tribe between them, comes the voice of Chief John Bigwind, hereditary chieftain and grandson of Chief James Bigwind, chief of Georgina Island, Christian Island and Rama Reserve Indians. More than 80 years of age, the chief, who lives by himself some miles from the main village, told The Star to-day that ‘on the reserve the half-breeds are fighting among themselves now, as I always knew they would, as my father always told me they would.

‘These men who are fighting now in the reserve, what are they but half-breeds?’ asked the aged chief.

‘Look at their eyes. Blue, blue eyes for an Indian. Look at mine they are Indian’s eyes, aren’t they?’ He proudly lifted up his graying head, out of which peer dark eyes, keen for all his eighty years.

‘They’ve got a doctor at Ottawa who will examine the blood and see if we are Indians,’ continued the chief. ‘Chief Alder Yorke and Johnny George and his brother, all of them are half-breeds. I am an Ojibway. My father was chief and my grandfather. There are not many of us pure blooded Indians left. Not a quarter of the Rama Reserve is pure blooded Indians.’

There are about 300 on the reserve. Most of the pure blooded Indians live away from the village by themselves, the chief said.