Ganaraska

The Ganaraska River flows south to Lake Ontario through a country of wooded hills and streams. At its mouth stood Ganaraske, a Cayuga settlement established after 1660; a Michi Saagiig Anishinaabe village later occupied the riverbank. A route inland linked the lakeshore with Rice Lake, while the river itself offered fish and a place of exchange.

In the late eighteenth century fur traders and Loyalist settlers arrived at the river mouth, where the growing settlement became known as Port Hope. British officials met Michi Saagiig leaders there in 1818 to negotiate Treaty 20, part of a series of agreements concerning lands north of Lake Ontario. Mills later drew on the river's current as the settlement developed, while the lake connected it to other communities along the shore.