Les meilleurs hôtels à North Bay

Long celebrated as the gateway to the north, the North Bay area is a highly evocative passageway to Canadian history -- and not just through the Dionne Quintuplets Museum. Magnificent provincial parks offer a chance to experience the area's natural beauty as it was lived by early Native residents and European settlers. From its beginnings as a settlement of the Nipissing Indians, North Bay has been a transportation center. The area's interconnected waterways were the entrance to Ontario's north and, at the same time, provided the fastest route from Montreal to the Great Lakes. Samuel de Champlain paddled "up the Ottawa River and down the Mattawa," on his exploratory trip through the region in 1615. Mattawa River Provincial Park encompasses the river, the lakes along its path, and a narrow, 150-yard band of land on either side. Algonquin Park, southeast of North Bay, is Ontario's oldest, largest and best-known provincial park. The 7,725 square-kilometer park was established in 1893 and named after a First Nations tribe. The Algonquin lived in the park area until the mid-1600s, when they were driven out by the Iroquois. The home of Ontario's 22nd premier, Mike Harris, North Bay has made steps to preserve its role as an important crossroads, replacing trading routes with fibre-optic cable to attract high-tech industries to the picturesque locale.