Canoe Route to the West

Photo by Alan L Brown - July 25, 2005

Plaque Location

The District of Nipissing
The Town of Mattawa
On the NE corner of Main Street (County Road 533) and Mattawan Street

Plaque Text

Here, when the canoe was the principal means of travel, explorers, voyageurs, missionaries and others bound for the West, left the Ottawa River and followed the Mattawa River to Lake Nipissing, the French River and the upper Great Lakes. For over 200 years the Mattawa River formed part of the route linking the St. Lawrence River settlements with the vast interior of the continent. Among the historic figures who passed here were: Samuel De Champlain, 1615, Jean Nicolet, 1620, fathers Brébeuf, 1626, and Lalemant, 1648, Radisson and Groseilliers, 1685, La Vérendrye, 1731, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, 1794, and David Thompson, 1812.