Aundeck Omni Kaning

Aundek Omni Kaning First Nation is the traditional name for this busy community located 6 kilometers west of Little Current on Highway540.

This traditional name fairly recently officially replaced ‘Sucker Creek First Nation,’ the name that had been applied to this territory when the reserve system was set up on Manitoulin in 1862 following treaty negotiations with the government of Upper Canada.

Aundek Omni Kaning renders neatly into AOK First Nation and that positive-sounding acronym seems fine with everyone. There is now an AOK store and gas bar along the highway.

 AOK was the first of Manitoulin’s first nations begin to expand its land base when farms adjacent to its treaty borders came up for sale. Since the initial farm purchase, the community has acquired land on its west, east and northern boundaries. All of the other First Nation communities on Manitoulin have now each acquired adjacent lands.

 AOK enjoys its sports and recreation there are two men’s’ fastball teams that played in the Island league and the community’s ballpark is busy all summer at least two days a week. It’s in the center of the community, once again, along Highway 540.

 Beside it is the new Four Directions Complex. This is a first-rate gymnasium with hardwood floors for all the sports where this is appropriate. The complex also features a fitness centre, the community’s library and a kitchen to help host major community events in the gym (which can double as a community hall.)

Vital health services that are associated with all of Manitoulin’s First Nations communities, are headquartered at AOK in a very functional but stylized building on property located just past the community’s attractively stone-faced administration offices and just before the highway, westbound curves to the right.

Prior to the 1862 Manitoulin treaty that established the boundaries of the Island’s First Nations communities, a man names George Abotossaway had established a viable business in Little Current selling fuelwood to the steam-driven commercial shipping that passed by present-day Little Current en route through the North Channel where they were bound for fledgling commuter on the Island’s northern coast and, across the channel, to towns that side all the way to Sault Ste. Marie and beyond.