Pitchibourenik

The Pitchibourenik were an Indigenous people of the eastern James Bay country, and their name is attached to the Eastmain River, which the Cree call Iismeniiu-siipii. A Jesuit account of 1660 names the Pitchibourenik among the peoples of the region, and Louis Jolliet's 1679 map called the river the Rivière des Pachibourouniou after them.

The river rises in the Otish Mountains and runs more than 700 km to James Bay. In 1672 mica found at its mouth gave it the name Slude, an old word for mica, and by 1675 the name East Main had spread over the eastern shore of the bay. A trading post, called Slude River Post or East Main Post, was set up on the river in 1684. Guillaume Delisle's map of 1703 still marks the river as the Pitchibourouni.