Baawitigong

Baawitigong, the place of the rapids, lies where the St. Marys River carries the waters of Lake Superior towards Lake Huron. For the Anishinaabe it was a place of fishing, trade and ceremony. Whitefish gathered in the rapids, and fishers skilfully manoeuvred birchbark canoes among the currents while dipping their nets. People came from the surrounding country to fish and meet, while travellers carried their canoes around the rushing water.

French missionaries reached the rapids in the seventeenth century and established a mission called Sault Sainte-Marie. In 1671 the French representative Saint-Lusson proclaimed his king's claim to the surrounding lands before an assembly of Indigenous nations. The fur trade later made the crossing a busy link between Montreal and the western interior. The North West Company built a small canal to carry boats past the rapids, but an American attack destroyed it and the company's nearby depot in 1814.