Aguasabon

Aguasabon belongs to the river country north of Lake Superior, where waterways carry drainage from the interior toward the great lake. The river rises at Chorus Lake and runs about seventy kilometres before entering Lake Superior near Terrace Bay. Its most conspicuous feature is Aguasabon Falls, where the water drops thirty metres. The channel follows fractures in ancient bedrock; the exposed granodiorite is about 2.6 billion years old. This hard foundation and final descent gives the river a sharply defined route through forest.

The river and coast form part of the traditional country of Anishinaabe peoples connected with the northern shore of Lake Superior. Their seasonal round combined fishing, hunting, gathering and travel by canoe, using sheltered coves and river mouths as camps. From the seventeenth century, French and then British fur traders entered the Great Lakes, and Indigenous canoe routes and knowledge guided voyages into the interior.

The short lower river made the country around Aguasabon a stopping place between the lake and the forest. Its falls marked the end of easy canoe travel upstream, while the surrounding woodland supplied game, fur, bark and wood. The river thus joined subsistence and long-distance trade long before European settlers reached the northern shore.