THE PIC

The mouth of the Pic River has been a center of native trade and settlement for thousands of years.  It was a strategic location in the region's water transportation network because it offered access to northern lands and a canoe route to James Bay.  The halfway point for canoers travelling the north shore of Lake Superior, "the Pic" first appeared on European maps in the mid-seventeenth century.  Local natives began to trade furs with the French in the late 1770s, prompting a French trader to set up a permanent post here by 1792  The Hudson's Bay Company operated the post from 1821 until encroaching settlement let to its relocation in 1888.  In 1914 the Pic became a treaty reserve of its traditional inhabitants, the Ojibways of Pic River No.50 First Nation.