Wilno, Ontario

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For other uses, see Wilno (disambiguation).

Wilno, Ontario

The hamlet of Wilno, Ontario in Renfrew County, Ontario, is the oldest Polish settlement in Canada. The people who first settled in this area in the 1800s were mainly of Kashubian origin. The town is in the Madawaska valley.

At one time, J.R. Booth's Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway ran through the town. The former train route is now a recreational path.

The hamlet was named after Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania), the birthplace of Reverend Ludwik Dembski, a community spiritual leader.

In 1972, Wilno came into the spotlight as the result of a report "Vampires, Dwarves, And Witches Among The Ontario Kashubs" published by the Canadian Museum of Man, now the Canadian Museum of Civilization. This report appears to have been based more on folklore than local customs. However, it attracted attention from the National Enquirer and Psychology Today in the '70s. The legend still pops up from time to time.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II flew over the hamlet while on a visit to Canada, disappointing some residents who thought that, given the fact that he was Polish, he would pay his respects to Canada's first Polish settlement.

A local saying about the town claims, "What you don't know, you will know, when you get to Wilno."