Abstract

In 1668, a New England sea captain, accompanied by a renegade Frenchman, sponsored by wealthy Englishmen and following the advise of an anonymous Cree hunter, sailed into the mouth of Prince Ruperts River. There on a sandy terrace known to the Cree as Kaaneyaauhkaaw, they estabhshed what was to become the first English colonial settlement in Canada: Charles Fort. After a long history as Cree summer gathering place, BBC fur trading settlement, export site for medicinal plants, centre for mineral prospection, military outpost, HBC provisioning post, First Nations refugium, unmanned French outpost and HBC district depot, it has become the Cree community of Waskaganish. This major site on the eastcoast of James Bay has been quietly undergoing documentary research and small-scale testing since 1987.