Kenogamissi

Kenogamissi became a focus of fur-trade competition in 1794, when Hudson’s Bay Company employees from Frederick House established an outpost here. Frederick House lay about 64 kilometres to the northeast. The new station was intended to counter the North West Company, whose posts on Mattagami and Kukatush lakes offered competing outlets for the trade of this inland lake country.

In 1812 Kenogamissi became the principal post, with Frederick House reduced to a subsidiary station. Its position at the head of this local network proved brief. After the rival companies united, Kenogamissi closed in 1822 and its business passed to Mattagami and Flying Post, the latter formerly called Kukatush. The successive names and changing rank of these stations reveal how company competition, then consolidation, repeatedly rearranged the trading network. The post’s closure should be distinguished from the later administrative use of Kenogamissi as the name of a trading district.