Abitibi Uplands

The Abitibi Uplands lie in the forested country of northeastern Ontario. The Abitibi River runs northwest from Lake Abitibi for 540 kilometres and descends 265 metres before joining the Moose River, which reaches James Bay. Its tributaries gather water from a wide lowland of spruce, wetlands and shallow lakes.

Abitibi is an Algonquin name commonly explained as “halfway water.” French usage applied it to an Algonquin band living near the lake, between the trading posts of Hudson Bay and those of the Ottawa River. That position made the river a corridor for canoes carrying furs, food and European goods.

For Algonquin and Cree communities, the uplands were hunting and trapping country crossed by seasonal routes rather than an empty barrier. Bogs and small lakes held water across the broad interior, while low ridges separated one drainage from another. River ice and spring floods controlled access, and travellers often had to follow lakes and carry loads between them.

The Hudson's Bay Company later depended on these routes, but movement still followed snow, ice and the portages around rapids. The high ground west of James Bay thereby joined distant markets through a landscape whose forests and waterways remained the basis of movement.