Kennisis Lake - Interesting Facts

Interesting Facts

• The Kennisis Lake got its name from the early settlers who recorded the name of Joe Kennisis, an Indian, whose family had lived by hunting and fishing around the lake.
• By the 1880s, a four-foot dam was built where the Kennisis River flows out of the lake to provide a few weeks longer of sufficient water to float logs down to the mills.
• The First Nation in the Kennisis area gave up all rights to lands, along the Trent-Severn Waterway due to the Williams Treaty signed in 1923, between the federal government and the tribes of the land. Relics of these nations have been found in the areas of Haliburton where villages of the Hurons were established.
• In 1955, Hayward and Jones Ltd. of Peterborough obtained an option to buy the shoreline of Big and Little Kennisis from Hay and Co. Hence, the development of Big and Little Kennisis began in 1957 and 1962 respectively.
• After Hayward and Jones Ltd. sold its lot of land to the Kennisis Lake Development Ltd in 1963, three bridges, a hydro service, and a dam were developed.