The President of the United Sates, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, went fishing in Georgian Bay. From the first of August, 1943 until the 8th, FDR, a native guide, and scores of security agents lived aboard a presidential train on railroad tracks just 500 feet from the shores of the Bay of Islands. In those days as today, the waters around Birch Island, Whitefish Channel, McGregor Bay and the North Channel near the Manitoulin abounded in bass, pickerel, northern pike, muskellunge, and lake trout.
There is an historic plaque on the main highway across Manitoulin that commemorates President Roosevelt’s wartime holiday. Recently, Kathy Warnes has put more flesh on the story in an article published in the magazine, Inland Seas. This week, the Explorer will follow Roosevelt to Manitoulin Island for a bit of rest and relaxation.
In 1943, President Roosevelt was on his way to the historical Quebec Conference which was attended by Winston Churchill and other Allied leaders. The Second World War was raging as they gathered. German divisions were pouring into Italy, the Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg, and John F. Kennedy’s PT 109 had just been rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands. On August 5th, while Roosevelt cast his line in Georgian Bay, the Soviets had destroyed a German Panzer Army at Orel.
Roosevelt’s week-long vacation from the tensions of World War II were a war-time secret. Worn down by the global conflict and by polio that wracked his body, FDR was looking for a respite from the pressure of daily life as a war-time president. He was to find it in the waters of Georgian Bay were he landed black bass, wall-eyes, and pike.
Originally aired November 23rd 2016
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