• In the autumn of 1996, Parry Sound Mayor Nancy Cunningham, John Hackett and Pat Northey, invited the former racing director of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club to Parry Sound to evaluate the area as a potential racing venue. Ted Chisholm pronounced the waters of the Big Sound as superb for sailing races.
• Nancy Cunningham invited a few interested community people in March, 1997, to a meeting attended by Bill Beatty, Marianne King-Wilson, John Mason and John Shipman.
• On April 11, 1997, a crowded public meeting was held at which the decision was made to pursue racing events and re-establish the sailing culture in Parry Sound, through regattas and a sailing school. Marianne King-Wilson would chair the group.
• On June 20, 1997, Chisholm, Cunningham and King-Wilson made a presentation to the International Shark Class Association at the Buffalo Canoe Club.
• In October, 1997, Sail Parry Sound held its first race planning meeting.
• In June, 1998, King-Wilson went again to the International Shark Class Association in Breitenbrunn, Austria.
• In July, 1998, the first sailing school classes were offered.
• On August 22/23, 1998, the Shark Canadian Championships were held.
• On December 2, 1998, Sail Parry Sound Inc. was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in the Province of Ontario with Marianne King-Wilson as founding president.
• In February, 1999, Sail Parry Sound, with support from all the communities on the Parry Sound shoreline, entered its bid for the Olympic Yachting events in 2008 as part of the Toronto bid.
• 1999 marked the recognition of the Parry Sound Regatta Week with the J/24 Ombrelle Ontario Championships, August 14/15; and the Shark Class Canadian Championships, August 21/22, and the Sail Parry Sound Sailing School offering classes throughout July and August.
• In 1999, the Parry Sound Yacht Club became part of Sail Parry Sound.
• August, 2000, we hosted 54 boats and their crews and families for the Shark Class World Championships. Paul Henderson, then President of the International Sailing Federation opened the championship.
• In 2001, the sailing school announced its Silver School, to develop home-grown racers and instructors from among its 800 graduates.

• In 2002, with the help of a generous grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Silver School opened. Students of the Sailing School could now learn how to race. Silver Sail is an advanced course following the Bronze Sail level. The Silver level forges the link between the racing events managed by Sail Parry Sound, Inc. and the school's students. This youthful team of competitive racers, has been bringing home championships.

• In 2003 Larry Woolner, director of the Sail Parry Sound Sailing School accepted the William Abbott Senior Award from the Canadian Yachting Association, as best in Canada.

• In 2004, Sail Parry Sound leased a shoreline property from the Town of Parry Sound for a site of its own.  Until then, all operations had been on borrowed premises.

• In 2005, we unveiled the plans for a $525,000 facility, and launched the fundraising initiative. Fifteen graduates who began with our sailing school are now qualified sailing instructors.

• On March 15, 2006, construction began, to build the Sailing Centre and Public Park.  It was operational in July 2006.  

• April 11, 2007, Marianne King-Wilson completed her ten-year term as founding president,  succeeded by Larry Woolner.

• On June 21, 2007. Ted Chisholm, and Visionaries Nancy Cunningham, John Hackett and Pat Northey returned to participate with 150 guests, in the Grand Opening of their early vision.  Former President of the International Sailing Federation, Paul Henderson, raised the Burgee to open the sailing centre officially, and congratulated Sail Parry Sound.

• The next day, Sail Parry Sound welcomed the Ontario Albacore Championships.

• Early in 2008, the Ontario Sailing Association named Sail Parry Sound as a Development Training Centre.

• In 2009, the Big Sound Challenge training regatta shared the CYA award for Best Recreational Event in Canada.

• In 2010, the Big Sound Challenge Regatta was another tremendous success.
   
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 A History of Parry Sound

The Huron First Nations used the Parry Sound area as their summer hunting and fishing ground centuries ago. After bloody battles with the Iroquois, at Belvidere, at Shebeshekong, and Shawanaga, and finally on the Limestone Islands, the Hurons were vanquished. The Ojibway First Nations eventually established a village at the mouth of the Seguin River. They called their village "Wausakwasene" which loosely translated means "shining shore".
 

Parry Sound's first European visitor was Etienne Brulé in 1610, and five years later Samuel de Champlain passed through this famous canoe route. Parry Sound was named in 1822 by Captain Henry Bayfield, after Sir William Edward Parry, the Arctic explorer. Bayfield surveyed the 30,000 Islands in the early 19th century. The Town took its name from the Sound. William Gibson built a sawmill at the mouth of the Seguin River in 1857. He sold the mill in 1865 to William Beatty, who, with his sons William, Jr. and James, established the Town of Parry Sound. The Beattys opened a general store, built the first church, and established a steamship line linking Parry Sound to Midland and Collingwood. The late Bill Beatty, the fifth William in the family, was a founding member of Sail Parry Sound.