Early Inhabitants to Northwestern Ontario

It is the intent of this web page to gather and summarize all the literature and research on the lives of the earliest inhabitants of Northwestern Ontario.

Some of the details to be made clear are:

• The dates and timelines of the first inhabitants to Northwestern Ontario.
• The activities that people engaged in that enabled them to survive and adapt to the region.
• To link in a broader anthropological context those who first inhabited Northwestern Ontario with those who first inhabited the rest of Canada and North America.

Since there is continued archeological research and literature on this subject, this document is not complete. It will be amended as new sources of information are found.

According to Dickason (3) and McMillan (20) the timelines for the arrival of these early inhabitants to North America is contentious and is still being debated. However what is agreed upon by archeologists and anthropologists is that those who first inhabited North America originated from Asia and traveled to this continent via the Bering Strait. ( Dickason 4) (McMillan 20).

The Pleistocene era is a time period when the Earth underwent cyclical advances and declines of glaciers. This period dates from 1.8 million years ago to about 10,500 years ago. During times of maximal glacial extent, a large amount of the earth's water supply was trapped as ice in the massive glaciers that covered much of the earth's surface. This resulted in sea levels which would have been much lower than they are today, as much as 100 meters lower. This exposed a land mass connecting Asia with North America at the shallow waters of the Bering Strait. Scientists call this area Beringia (McMillan 23).

The Beringia corridor was an ice-free dry tundra that was populated by large game animals such as bison, Mammoth, and musk-oxen. That human hunters followed this game from Asia into North America is supported by archeological evidence on both continents. (Dickason 4). ). On the NA side, there are two cave sites in the northern Yukon, known as the Bluefish caves. Here they have found a small sample of stone tools along with the bones of horses and other late Pleistocene animals in deposits that date to between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago. (McMillan 29). This indicates that humans were living in the eastern edge of the Beringia during the late Pleistocene.

Those early inhabitants of North America who hunted large animals are known to archeologists as Paleo-Indian (McMillan 21). These nomadic hunters used unique projectile points that were placed at the end of spears and used to bring down the animal (McMillan 30). The spears themselves were often launched by a spear thrower that added extra momentum to the spear.

Some examples of the points placed at the end of spears by the Paleo-Indian hunters of North America. The drawings were sketched by DHS art teacher Ms. Nordlund. (McMillan 34)

It is obvious that the use of such a weapon would have required a skilled hunter. Archeological sites where these projectile points have been found range from the Eastern Rockies to Nova Scotia and down to Mexico. These date to 11,200 to 10,900 years ago. (McMillan 30-32).

Lauching of a spear thrower. The spear thrower added extra power to the spear. Sketched by art teacher Ms. Nordlund. (Dickason 15)

What archeological evidence exists in North Western Ontario for early Paleo-Indian cultures?

The Canadian Shield poses many problems to archeologists. The soil is very acidic and this tends to destroy bone and other organic materials (McMillan 98). However, there are sites in North Western Ontario that have revealed concrete archeological evidence that Paleo Indians populated this area thousands of years ago.

Located near Thunder Bay are a number of archeological sites where large numbers of projectile points used by Paleo-Indians have been unearthed. This area has been termed the "Lakehead Complex".The projectile points found here date to roughly 10,000 to 7500 years ago. (McMillan 35). In addition, the Cummins site, which is also near Thunder Bay, has the remains of a cremation burial site which dates to 8500 years ago. (McMillan 35).

There is another archeological period that developed out of the late Paleo-Indian period termed the Shield Archaic. It is appropriately named as such because it studies those people who occupied the forests located in the Canadian Shield as the glaciers retreated. Many Shield Archaic sites have been located at narrow section of lakes and rivers where caribou herds crossed. Lack of bone preservation has made it difficult to determine the aboriginal diet. However, the use of stone tools, the occasional use of copper as well as the use of the birch bark canoe categorize this archeological time period. (McMillan 99).

The introduction of pottery marks a new stage, called the Woodland period. The Woodland variant that occurred in the area from central Manitoba to Lake Superior is called the Laurel culture. The Laurel culture dates from about 200 BC to 1200 AD. The use of ceramics to make pottery distinguishes the Laurel culture from the previous Archaic period. (McMillan 99)

Of notable significance are the burial mounds that give us an understanding of Laurel religious life. Burials mounds from the Laurel culture are found from Lake Superior to the Manitoba border. The most known burial mounds are located along the Rainy river. Excavation has revealed the remains of thirteen indivduals who were buried about one thousand years ago. The remains indicate that the persons died elsewhere but were buried at this location (McMillan 100).

Excavation at the Ballynacree site in Kenora has exposed an entire late Laurel village. The archeological digs at this site have unearthed a village that contained three oval shaped houses. The houses appear to be large dome-shaped lodges made of bent saplings. The village was populated by approximately 30 people (McMillan 100).

The culture found from northern Lake Superior to southeastern Manitoba just before contact with the Europeans is termed Blackduck. Blackduck is known primarily for the distinctive pottery that was used. Copper used from the copper deposits of western Lake Superior appears in the knives, fishhooks and beads found at Blackduck sites. Some archeologists attribute this period to the Assiniboine who were known to occupy this part of Northwestern Ontario before the Ojibway expansion (McMillan 100-101).

The below table is meant to help the reader understand the many archeological periods that pertain to the Aboriginal presence in North America and particularly Northwestern Ontario:

Finally, there is one more archeological time period that must be clarified to enable the reader to better understand more detailed literature on the Aboriginal presence in Canada. That period is termed the historic period. This period is characterized by the introduction of European trade goods to Native artifacts. (McMillan 101).

The Ojibway Presence in Northwestern Ontario

Helen Hornbeck Tanner, author of The Ojibwa states that the Ojibway lived by a Great Salt Sea in the East. The Ojibway peoples had close links with the Ottawa and the Potawatomi Nations. These three Nations were called The Three Fires. Following a vision that led them westward, those people migrated from the East along the St. Lawrence river to the area around the Great Lakes. The Ottawa settled in the country north of Lake Huron, the Potawatomi settled in southwestern Michigan and the Ojibway settled just north of present day Sault Ste. Marie. (Tanner 14).

When the early French explorers encountered the Ojibway people, they called them Saulteurs or people of the rapids, referring to their ability to cross the rapids found near Sault Saint Marie. (McMillan 104).

Those early French explorers had an insatiable desire for fur. They enticed the Ojibway and other Aboriginal Nations with European metal goods. These new opportunities led the Ojibway people to move westward in search of new trapping lands for beaver and other fur bearing animals. Starting before the end of the 17th century (1600s) the Ojibway pushed westward up to Lake Winnipeg and into territory once occupied by the Cree. By the middle of the 18th century, the Ojibway were making trading trips to Fort Albany, a Hudsons Bay Company post on James Bay. The northern Ojibway intermingled with the Cree, and lived in small scattered hunting and fishing bands. (McMillan 117). Today a number of these people consider themselves (and are officially recognized as) Ojibway-Cree.

Citations Page

Dickason, Olive Patricia. Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, Don Mills:Oxford University Press, 2002

McMillan, Alan D. Native Peoples and Cultures of Canada, Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1995

Tanner, Helen H. The Ojibwa, New York:Chelsea House Publishers,1992.