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• Union of the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies
  In the late eighteenth century, most of the fur traders using the Ottawa River-Great Lakes canoe route into the interior of North America belonged to the North West Company, which used Fort William as its inland headquarters. To the north, the rival Hudson's Bay Company exported furs by ship from its sub-Arctic posts. By 1810, both companies were expanding their operations inland into the fur-rich Athabaska area. Their intensifying competition provoked violent clashes between contending...

• Champlain in Ontario, 1615
  In April 1615, Samuel de Champlain (c. 1574-1635) embarked from Honfleur, upon his seventh voyage to New France. Upon arrival in Quebec, Champlain was informed of increasing tensions with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) the traditional rival of his Anishinabe (Algonquian) and Wendat (Huron) allies. He travelled west to Huronia on a diplomatic and military expedition where he visited several villages including Cahiagué, a large and important Wendat settlement. With a mixed force of 400-500 First Nations...

• Jean Baptiste Rousseaux 1758-1812
  Rousseaux was the first European to settle in the Toronto area. He and his father were interpreters for the Indian Department and were licensed to trade in this region. In 1787, Jean-Baptiste married Margaret Clyne, a ward of Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, and by 1791 he had built a trading post here at the Toronto Carrying Place. When Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe arrived by schooner to establish the provincial capital of York in 1793, Rousseaux piloted him...

• Michipicoten Canoe Route, The
  The nearby Michipicoten River formed an important link in the canoe from Lake Superior to James Bay via the Michipicoten, Missinaibi and Moose Rivers. The route was probably explored at an early date by the French Fur traders who maintained a post at Michipicoten. However the first recorded journeys were not made until the l770's when the Hudson Bay Co. Began to establish furtrading posts along this route inland from Moose Fort. In l781 Philip...

• North West Company Post, The
  Travellers on the canoe route to the West had to make a portage around the St Mary's rapids. The North West Company established a fur-trading post south of the river by 1791. After the British abandoned their occupation of the American midwest, the company moved its post here in 1797. The depot eventually included storehouses, a canal and lock, a sawmill, and a portage road. Wharves were built at either end of the rapids for...

• Superior's First Shipyard
  The first decked vessel to sail Lake Superior was constructed near this site on Pointe aux Pins in 1734-35. It was used by Louis Denis, Sieur de la Ronde, during an unsuccessful attempt to establish copper mines on the southern shore of the lake. Alexander Henry, one of the leading fur traders during the early days of the British regime, built a barge of 14 tons in 1770 and in August 1772, launched a sloop of 40 tons. These vessels transported supplies to a short-lived copper mine developed by Henry and his associates near Point Mamainse.

• Kenogamissi Post
  Near this site in 1794, Hudson's Bay Company employees from Frederick House, 40 miles to the northeast, established an outpost. Its objective was to counter the fur trading activities of the North West Company in the area, and it succeeded so well that in 1812 it became the chief post and Frederick House the subsidiary. Through its existence it engaged in spirited competition with the Northwesters on Mattagamie Lake and Kukatush Lake, some 32 miles...

• Whitefish Lake Post
  The Hudson's Bay Company had established a fur trading post on the western shore of Whitefish Lake by 1824. It was hoped that a depot adjacent to the portage route to Wakami Lake would help prevent independent traders in Michigan, Wisconsin and southern Ontario from encroaching on trade north of the French River. In this, the post was reasonably successful. In 1887, the Company dismantled the building and moved it here to Naughton (Walden) so...

• Red Lake House
  In the summer of 1790, the Hudson's Bay Company sent James Sutherland from Osnaburgh House to establish a post on Red Lake. Duncan Cameron of the North West Company was already trading there. Although competition in the fur trade was intense, at times violent, the traders on Red Lake stayed on friendly terms. By 1806, when the HBC closed Red Lake House, the post had been at five different locations on the lake. The HBC...

• Umfreville's Exploration 1784
  A fur trader, Edward Umfreville, passed here in July 1784. He had been commissioned by the North West Company to discover an alternative to the traditional canoe route to the West via the Grand Portage and Pigeon River, which had come under American control. Leaving Lake Superior, he ascended the Nipigon River and struck westward from Lake Nipigon via an intricate course that included the Wabinosh River, Sturgeon Lake, Lac Seul and the English River...

• Hudson's Bay Post 1856
  In 1856, the Hudson's Bay Company, faced with decline in trade at La Cloche on the mainland, obtained permission to establish a post at Little Current. A substantial log building, this community's first European structure, was built near here in 1856-57 by George McTavish, the clerk in charge of La Cloche. However, opposition from some Indians and resident missionaries to what they considered encroachment on the Reserve caused the government to rescind the Company's license...

• Grey Owl 1888-1938
  As a youth in England, Archibald Belaney was fascinated with wildlife and tales of North American Indians. At seventeen he came to Canada and soon began living among the Ojibwa on Bear Island. He adopted native dress and customs, and worked as a woodsman, fire ranger and trapper in northeastern Ontario. In the 1920s, Belaney became concerned that the lumber industry and sportsmen were plundering the northern wilderness and threatening the survival of native culture...

• Temagami Post 1834
  The first Hudson's Bay post on Lake Timagami was established on the south shore of Timagami Island in 1834 under Chief Trader Richard Hardisty, the father-in-law of Lord Strathcona. It was essentially an outpost of the Company's larger establishment on Lake Timiskaming in the Ottawa Valley. Temagami (originally Timagami) was not a large centre of trade and, in its early days, was abandoned several times. However, in these instances, the consequent establishment of rival traders induced the Company to reopen the post. In the 1870s, it was moved to this site on Bear Island.

• Lac La Pluie House 1818-1903
  The Hudson's Bay Company established Lac La Pluie House on this site to compete for furs with the North West Company's Fort Lac La Pluie. After the two companies merged in 1821, only Lac La Pluie House continued in operation. It was renamed Fort Frances in 1830 after a visit by HBC Governor Sir George Simpson and Lady Frances Simpson. The post traded with local Ojibwa for furs, wild rice, and isinglass (obtained from sturgeon)...

• Jacques de Noyon 1668-1745
  The coureur de bois Jacques de Noyon was born at Trois-Rivières and raised at Boucherville, near Montreal. In 1688, he led a trading party north of Lake Superior and explored further west than any Frenchman of his time. He ascended the Kaministiquia River, crossed Dog Lake and, through several portages, reached Rainy Lake. Near Fort Frances, on Rainy River, Noyon built a post where he spent the winter. He traveled on to Lake of the...

• Founding of Killarney, The
  Etienne-Augustin de la Morandière, fur trader and founder of Killarney, settled here in 1820, when this locality, on the voyageurs' canoe route to the Northwest, was known as Shebahonaning ("narrow channel"). A substantial trading establishment, built by La Morandière on Drummond Island after the War of 1812, was destroyed by fire in 1817, and he moved here permanently after trading for a time at Flat Point, Bay of Islands. La Morandière raised crops and brought...

• Long Lake Posts
  In 1814, the Hudson's Bay Company set up a trading post on Long Lake about two miles southwest of here, close to one established prior to 1800 by the North West Company. The latter had been intercepting trade which would otherwise have gone to Henley House, an H.B.C. post on the Albany River some 140 miles to the northeast. The two local posts continued in bitter competition until the union of the rival companies in...

• William McGillivray 1764-1825
  Born in Iverness-shire, Scotland, McGillivray joined the North West Company in 1784, became a partner in 1790 and its principal director in 1804. Fort Kaministiquia, the Company's wilderness headquarters, was renamed Fort William in his honour in 1807. He was largely responsible for the Nor'Westers' bitter opposition to Lord Selkirk's Red River Colony, but later supported negotiations, which led to the union of the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies in 1821. He served as...

• Great Dog Portage
  This portage was one of the steepest on the Kaministiquia canoe route between Lake Superior and the West. First recorded in 1688 by French explorer Jacques de Noyon, it was abandoned after 1732 in favour of the shorter and easier Grand Portage-Pigeon River route. The latter came under American control following the treaty of 1783, and about 1803 traffic was resumed on the older route. Over 1½ miles in length and involving an ascent of...

• Samuel de Champlain
  Born at Brouage about 1570, this world-renowned cartographer and colonizer sailed from Honfleur in March 1603 on the first of more than twenty Atlantic crossings between France and Canada. Five years later, he established Quebec and thereby laid the foundation of the French empire in North America. An intrepid explorer, he journeyed into the interior of the continent (1613-1615), penetrating much of what is now Ontario. His account of these travels provided the first recorded...

• Gateway to Huronia, The
  From this lookout may be seen the bay which, during the first half of the 17th century, formed the western terminus of the 800-mile route connecting New France with the Huron settlements. Heavily laden canoes ascended the Ottawa, surmounted the rapids of the Mattawa and French Rivers, crossed Lake Nipissing and traversed the island-studded channels of Georgian Bay. Over these waters passed Recollet and Jesuit missionaries, Etienne Brûlé, Samuel de Champlain and other heroic figures of the French regime.

• Champlain's Journey of 1613
  The Father of New France, Samuel de Champlain, made the first of two voyages into what is now Ontario in 1613. He travelled up the Ottawa River seeking the northern sea (Hudson Bay) which one of his five companions, Nicolas de Vignau, claimed to have seen. The expedition struck inland above Lac des Chats and followed a chain of small lakes towards present-day Cobden. Here, on June 7th, Champlain visited with the Algonkin chief Nibachis...

• Government Inn 1798-1861
  Near this site on the Credit River's eastern bank, the government of Upper Canada built a "post-house" or inn in 1798, for the use of persons travelling between york and such settlements as Niagara and Detroit. Constructed of dressed timber, it was for some seven years the only building between Etobicoke River and Burlington Beach. Local Mississauga Indians gathered here to trade salmon and furs. Here also they signe the Treaties of 1805 and 1818...

• Fur Trading at Saugeen
  The Anishnabe lived by the mouth of the Saugeen River before Pierre Piché arrived in 1818 to begin fur trading in the region. By 1826, the Hudson's Bay Company established an outpost at Saguingue to compete with independent fur traders like Piché. From La Cloche, its main post on Lake Huron, the Hudson's Bay Company employed First Nations, Métis, French and British fur traders who largely depended on Anishnabe hunters to supply deer, bear and...

• Capture of Fort William 1816, The
  In 1812, the Earl of Selkirk settled dispossessed Scottish highlanders on Red River valley lands granted by the Hudson's Bay Company. The HBC's rival in the fur trade, the North West Company, feared the new colony would block its trade and supplies. Clashes between traders and colonists culminated with the killing of twenty settlers in the Massacre of Seven Oaks on June 19, 1816. News of Seven Oaks reached Selkirk as he was travelling westward...

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