Today we started by driving east around Lake Nippising to the town of Callander where we visited one of two museums dedicated to the Dionne Quintuplets. This is in the Callander Bay Heritage Museum, it also houses many historic items related to the town of Callander, and an art museum where local artists sell paintings. The museum is in the home of Dr. Dafoe, the doctor that sort of helped deliver the quintuplets. The real work was done by the two midwives (Madam LeGros & Madam Lebel) who managed to keep all 5 babies and the mother alive. The Dr. left after the birth and stated that it was unlikely any would survive as they were so small.

The story of the Dionne’s childhood is not a pleasant one, they were a global curiosity and millions of people flocked to Corbeil/Callander to see where they were born, see the quints when they were put on display and buy souvenirs of their visit. The best description I can make of their childhood was they lived in a zoo. Unfortunately the parents, Dr. Dafoe, and both midwives saw a chance to make money off their notoriety and exploited it to their advantage. The amount of product endorsements that the quints and others obtained rivals any pro athlete today. Probably the only good that came of the birth is that the towns of Callander and North Bay became well know and grew into thriving towns.

Then we headed south to visit the town of Magnetawan which is where the Schmeler family lived for about four years back just after the turn of the century. There is an old building in town that was the ‘Schmeler House’ for many years and served as a hotel and restaurant. It closed in 2012, but was recently renovated and re-opened as the Magnetawan Grill & Grocery. We had a great 40th anniversary lunch, Donna had walleye and Brian had a turkey dinner, for dessert it was rhubarb strawberry pie for Donna and sticky toffee pudding for Brian. If you are ever in the area it comes highly recommend. It was neat to eat in the building that Donna’s grandfather’s uncle ran for so many years.

We then visited the Chapman Community Cemetery where some  Schmelers are buried, Donna’s grandfather and his family moved north from Magnetawan around 1904, his two uncles and their families stayed in the area. One of them ran a hunting/fishing camp for many years.

We took a quick drive into the woods to find ‘Schmeler Road’ which presumably lead to one of the family homesteads back in the day, we didn’t drive down the road as it was very overgrown and didn’t look to inviting .😀

Next was a visit to the famous ‘Gateway to the North’ sign in North Bay, this used to mark the boundary between civilization and the wilderness. We also stopped at the Dionne house (which has been moved to downtown North Bay), but it was closed. It’s one of the the only structures remaining from Quintland (the town that grew up around their home).