Témiscamingue

Témiscamingue takes its name from the long, deep lake formed by a widening of the upper Ottawa River. The Algonquin people knew its shores and neighbouring waterways as part of a homeland extending into the northern forests. At Obadjiwan, where the lake narrows and the current quickens, generations of travellers gathered and camped. Objects made from distant stone and copper bear witness to exchange with peoples from the Great Lakes to James Bay.

In the 1680s the French established a trading post on the lake to compete with the English on Hudson Bay. Destroyed during the wars with the Haudenosaunee, it was followed in 1720 by a post at Obadjiwan on the eastern shore. Montréal merchants traded there with Algonquin families, whose trapping skills and networks sustained the commerce. The North West Company took over in 1795, and the Hudson's Bay Company inherited the post after the two companies merged in 1821.