Ashuanipi Lake

Ashuanipi Lake lies in southern Labrador, its irregular shores and islands surrounded largely by forest. Its Innu name means “a place to cross,” and evidence dates human occupation in the area back at least 1,600 years. Together with the nearby headwaters of the Moisie River, the lake formed part of an Innu route towards the lower north shore of the St. Lawrence.

The Ashuanipi River leaves the lake's northern end for the Menihek Lakes, with waters continuing through the Churchill River system towards Lake Melville and the Atlantic. By the early eighteenth century the lake was also known to colonists of New France. Its waterways connected a northern interior landscape that had long been traversed by Innu communities.