Waswanipi

Waswanipi is Cree country around a lake and river of the same name, in the forested interior east of James Bay. Its name is associated with light on the water and the practice of spearing fish by torchlight. Cree families gathered near the lake in summer and travelled to their hunting grounds during the rest of the year.

Traders from the south began visiting the district in the eighteenth century. By 1775 they maintained a year-round establishment on nearby Gull Lake, and later a North West Company post stood on an island in Lake Waswanipi. When the Hudson's Bay Company arrived in 1820, it found an established rival there. The posts became meeting places for Cree hunters and traders in the fur trade.