Fighting Island is a island in the Detroit River, and is the largest Canadian island in the river. It is part of the town of LaSalle,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada, opposite

Wyandotte, Michigan Wyandotte ( ) is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 25,058 at the 2020 census. Wyandotte is located in southeastern Michigan, approximately south of Detroit on the Detroit River, and it is part of the coll ...

, and downriver from

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

and

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

History

Originally populated by

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

, it was settled by the French during the 18th century, and has had numerous owners since then. The island took its name from the Indigenous artifacts that were first spotted on the island in 1810. The island was the site of a brief skirmish on February 24 and 25, 1838, during the

Battle of Windsor The Battle of Windsor was a short-lived campaign in the eastern Michigan area of the United States and the Windsor area of Upper Canada. A group of men on both sides of the border, calling themselves "Patriots", formed small militias in 1837 wi ...

, part of the

Patriot War The Patriot War was a conflict along the Canada–United States border in which bands of raiders attacked the British colony of Upper Canada more than a dozen times between December 1837 and December 1838. This so-called war was not a conflic ...

. In 1918, the land was bought by John B. Ford of the Michigan Alkali Company and was used as a location to deposit waste from their industrial plants which produced

soda ash Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CO3 and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions ...

lye A lye is a metal hydroxide traditionally obtained by leaching wood ashes, or a strong alkali which is highly soluble in water producing caustic basic solutions. "Lye" most commonly refers to sodium hydroxide (NaOH), but historically has been u ...

and

baking soda Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda, is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt composed of a sodium cation ( Na+) and a bicarbonate anion ( HCO3� ...

. Nearly of high-pH waste was dumped on the island during its industrial history. Michigan Alkali Company became Wyandotte Chemicals Corporation, which was subsequently bought by

BASF BASF SE () is a German multinational chemical company and the largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The BASF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries ...

, who are the current owners of the island. BASF embarked on a rehabilitation program which successfully removed the waste for proper disposal, and rebuilt the natural habitat of the island. A current program running on the island is used to teach elementary/secondary schools about biology and ecology.

References

{{reflist, 30em BASF River islands of Ontario Landforms of Essex County, Ontario Private islands of Canada Islands of the Detroit River