ABSTRACT
Oregon-is sometimes called the Great Lakes Peninsula because of its extensive shoreline on Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. European settlement began at scattered French fur trading posts (see also 32-33) in the seventeenth century; by the 1730s, the French had established farms in the Detroit River area. Bet\veen the 1770s and 1850, farming would begin to change Southern Ontario's natural landscape by the concurrent processes of cutting and clearing the original-largely forested-vegetation, damming streams, and introducing exotic species of plants and animals, for example, wheat and cattie .
