Timiscaming

The Timiscaming are the Anishinaabe bands of Lake Timiskaming, where the Ottawa River bends toward the Saint Lawrence. Algonquin-speaking hunters and trappers, related to the Nipissing and Odawa, they camped and fished around the lake's narrows and the Kipawa River.

Their meeting place at Obadjiwan Point, the strait where the current flows, commanded the canoe route linking Hudson Bay with Montreal. About 1679 Montreal traders built a post on the lake, which the Iroquois destroyed in 1688.

French merchants returned in 1720 to found Fort Témiscamingue at the old Obadjiwan encampment, drawing the local bands into the fur trade as guides, canoe men and trappers. After the conquest of New France the post passed to independent traders, then to the North West Company in 1788 and the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.