False Detour Channel in the context of Manitoulin District, Ontario

The North Channel is the body of water along the north shore of Lake Huron, in the Canadian province of Ontario and the state of Michigan in the United States of America. It stretches approximately 160 nautical miles (300 km) and is bordered on the east by Georgian Bay, on the west by the St. Marys River, to the north by the eastern Algoma District and part of the Sudbury District, and to the south by the islands of Manitoulin, Cockburn, Drummond and St. Joseph. At its widest point it is over 30 km (20 miles) wide.

In addition to Georgian Bay, the North Channel is connected to the main body of Lake Huron by the False Detour Channel and the Mississagi Strait, which separate the above-noted islands.

Cockburn Island is an island and township municipality in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in the Manitoulin District. It is separated from the westernmost point of Manitoulin Island by the Mississagi Strait, and from Michigan's Drummond Island by the False Detour Channel. The island is incorporated as and coterminous with the municipal Township of Cockburn Island.

The island contains approximately 90 cottages that are owned and occupied by families as vacation properties, and thus has an estimated population of 200 to 300 people in the summer; however, the island's sole permanent year-round resident is a maintenance employee of the township, and thus its official census population has sometimes been recorded as zero due to Statistics Canada practices of rounding off the populations of communities smaller than 15 people. Historically, however, the island had a permanent resident population of up to 1,000 people, and evolved from a conventionally populated settlement into a seasonal cottage country area after the island's regular ferry service was discontinued in the 1960s.