Callander Bay is an eroded Proterozoic volcanic pipe formed by the violent, supersonic eruption of a deep-origin volcano, approximately 500 million years ago.

In 1610, French explorer Samuel de Champlain sent a young apprentice, Étienne Brûlé, to live with the Huron natives at Georgian Bay.

While en route, Brûlé discovered Lake Nipissing via the La Vase River Portage (approximately 3 km north of Callander) and established a major fur trading route linking the Ottawa River with the upper Great Lakes.

In 1880, George Morrison, a bookkeeper from Oxford County in Southern Ontario travelled by ox-cart from Muskoka to Lake Nipissing.

On June 1, 1881, he opened a Post Office in his general store and named it after his parents' Scottish birthplace of Callander.