The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC) is providing $316,200 for the development of Circuit Champlain (the Champlain Trail), a heritage corridor retracing the steps of French explorer Samuel de Champlain, Minister of Northern Development and Mines Rick Bartolucci announced today.
This initiative will promote linkages between natural and cultural resources in communities such as Mattawa, North Bay, Sudbury, French River, Parry Sound and Manitoulin Island and will include the development of a number of related tourism products, tour packages and marketing activities.
The project is expected to boost seasonal employment in the tourism and hospitality sectors as it aims to draw interest from francophone markets.
?This investment will have many positive impacts on the Northeastern tourism industry as well as on Francophone communities. Circuit Champlain offers a unique setting to relive the past and experience a great vacation or week-end getaway,? said Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Francophone Affairs.
?The francophone demographic is a largely untapped market for Northeastern Ontario?s tourism sector,? said Bartolucci, chair of the NOHFC. ?This project will help attract new visitors from Ontario, Quebec and abroad and introduce them to the rich and storied heritage of our French-Canadian ancestry.?