Napa Valley, Gravenhurst



Napa Valley (French: Vallée de la Calédonie) is a community in the Town of Caithness - Caledonia. Located approximately 3 km southeast of Downtown Caledonia. It is one of the three parts of the continuous urban area of Caledonia within the town.

The community consists of mostly residential buildings, and is surrounded by two escarpment cliffs, hence the community is located at the bottom of a valley. The valley is named "Napa" after an European explorer, Galerio Napa, who first settled here in 1737. Napa had cleared an area of woods under the valley in 1737 to create a residential subdivision and housing quarters for local indigenous population and the Alphabet Religion missionaries. The community thus received its name by the valley's name. However, the French, when moving into the area in the 1900s, refused to use the name "Napa Valley", but instead calling the area "Valley of Caledonia" (Vallée de la Calédonie). The French name remains in use today, and treated as synonyms with its English counterpart.