Nehina

The Nehina are the Western Swampy Cree, whose self-name nêhinaw means an Indigenous person in balance with the land, and who are also called Mushkegowuk, the people of the muskeg. Their bands range through the interior south-west of Hudson Bay, around the Nelson and Hayes rivers.

A Hudson's Bay Company party met them at the mouths of the Nelson and Hayes in 1682, and the company raised Fort Nelson there in 1684, followed by York Factory on the Hayes. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured York Factory in 1697 after the Battle of Hudson's Bay, and the Treaty of Utrecht returned it to Britain in 1713.

As Half-Homeguard Cree the western Swampy bands moved seasonally between the bay coast and the inland forests. With company firearms they became traders and middlemen, carrying the fur trade west along the Saskatchewan River.