Mistahi Sakahikan

Mistahi Sakahikan, the great lake known in French as Lac la Ronge, lies on the edge of the Canadian Shield. Its rocky shores and many islands give way to gentler ground at the southern end. The lake lies in Cree country and became a centre of a fur trade in which beaver pelts were especially important.

In the winter of 1781–82 Peter Pond and Jean-Étienne Waddens kept trading posts on the lake. A quarrel between the two men ended with Waddens fatally wounded. Trade continued after his death, and by the early nineteenth century the Hudson's Bay Company also maintained a post here. After the company united with its North West rival in 1821, the Lac la Ronge post opened and closed several times before being abandoned at the end of the 1829–30 trading season.