Koroc

The Koroc valley connects the Torngat Mountains with Ungava Bay in northern Quebec. Its human history is older than the trading posts and permanent villages established around the bay. Archaeological and historic sites in the surrounding country preserve traces of occupation extending back roughly a thousand years, while Inuit knowledge remembers an old route through the mountains.

Fragments of metachert provide a particularly concrete sign of movement. This valued sharp-edged stone was obtained at Ramah Bay on the Labrador side of the mountains and has also been found on Ungava Bay's shores. Its distribution suggests that travellers used the Koroc corridor to carry material from east to west. The valley thus belonged to a network linking opposite coasts, rather than ending at an isolated inland boundary. Winter travel and knowledge of mountain passages were parts of that connection. The archaeological evidence supports an inhabited route landscape before intensive outside settlement, without establishing that every site belonged to the same community or was occupied continuously.