Missinipi

Missinipi, the Cree name for the great Churchill River, means “great water.” The river passes through a long chain of northern lakes on its way east to Hudson Bay, linking stretches of forest with rapids and carrying places. Its upper waters were part of the homeland of Cree peoples, whose routes across the lakes preceded the arrival of European traders.

During the eighteenth century the Churchill became a major fur-trade route. In 1776 Thomas Frobisher established a post at Île-à-la-Crosse on the upper river, where traders could meet people bringing furs from the northwest. Two years later Peter Pond crossed the Methye Portage, a route shown to him by Indigenous people, and reached the Athabasca country. The portage joined the Churchill watershed to rivers flowing towards the Arctic.