Témiscouata

Lake Témiscouata lies among the wooded highlands between the St Lawrence and the Saint John. Its waters flow south by the Madawaska River, while a portage to the north leads towards the St Lawrence. The Wolastoqiyik and other Indigenous peoples travelled this route long before Europeans used it to pass between Canada and Acadia.

French authorities began clearing a narrow path along the Grand Portage in 1746. After the American War of Independence, the British sought a more reliable connection between Québec and Halifax. Hundreds of men, many of them militiamen, worked on a road from the St Lawrence to Lake Témiscouata between 1783 and 1787. The lake and river carried travellers onward towards the Saint John, but settlement around the lake remained sparse: the seigneury of Madawaska had only 65 inhabitants in 1827.