Midland

Midland: Sainte-Marie among the Hurons

Midland, town, Simcoe county, south-central Ontario, Canada. It is located on Midland Bay, an arm of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. It was surveyed in 1872 and became a village in 1878 and a town in 1887. Midland has large harbour installations and grain elevators and is a customs port and a steamship terminal for the Georgian Bay resorts.

On the Wye River about 3 miles (5 km) east of Midland is the reconstructed Fort-Sainte-Marie, which from 1639 to 1649 was the Jesuit mission headquarters for the Huron region. It was one of the first European settlements in inland Canada and had Ontario’s first hospital, school, and farm. Nearby are Little Lake Park, with a replica of a Huron Indian village and a museum, and the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre. Pop. (2006) 16,300; (2011) 16,572.