Local stories record that while collecting water during a picnic at this spot in 1897, Louise Towab and her husband William Teddy discovered gold either at the bottom of her pail, or uncovered a rich gold-bearing quartz vein hidden under moss on the forest floor.
Word about this historic gold find spread quickly. The Michipicoten Gold Boom occurred around the same time as the famous Klondike rush. Fortune seekers from around the world flocked to the forests surrounding Wawa Lake. The Bureau of Mines quickly established the Michipicoten Mining Division, the first of its kind in Ontario. The Division office was located in the factor's home at the Michipicoten Hudson's Bay Company post on Michipicoten River.
The Teddys were paid $500 for their chance find that led to a miniature Klondike and sealed Wawa's future as a mining-based community.