Waskaganish (, Little House; ) is a Cree community of over 2,500 people at the mouth of the Rupert River on the south-east shore of James Bay in Northern Quebec, Canada. Waskaganish is part of the territory referred to as "Eeyou Istchee" ("The Land of the People" in Cree) encompassing the traditional territories of Cree people in the James Bay regions of what is now Northern Quebec and Ontario. The community of Waskaganish celebrated its 350-year anniversary in 2018. The village is located at the site of the former Fort Rupert, the first Hudson's Bay Company trading post on Hudson Bay. History Pre-contact According to a study on aboriginal fur trade, Cree hunting groups of three or four families moved from traditional seasonal fishing and hunting camps. They often stayed close to watersheds. In 2012, a local resident of Waskaganish found rough-looking stone blades and arrowheads at the Saunders Goose Pond on Waskaganish territory that could be between 4,000 and 7,000 years old. In 2012 archaeological teams were digging near the Smokey Hill rapids about 20 kilometres from Waskaganish, a traditional weir fishing site where families have gathered annually in late summer for generations. Prior to construction of the hydroelectric project and the partial diversion of the Rupert River which exposed the shoreline, the natural current forced fish into the weir. After the diversion, scoop-net fishing pools were unusable. By 2011 there were larger concentrations of cisco at Gravel Pit, they were smaller than previous years. Pre-contact trade relations between Cree and other aboriginal groups were "mostly centered on trading moose hides for ‘cereals’, ‘indian corn’, and tobacco." There was a pre-contact intertribal Cree-Montagnais trade route from Waskaganish to the Saint Lawrence River via Rupert River and the Saguenay River. Post-contact It was hypothesized that Henry Hudson's fateful over-wintering in 1610-1611 was in Waskaganish territory. In 1610 Hudson had reached what is now the Hudson Strait but by November his new ship, Discovery, had become icebound in James Bay and they were forced to move ashore. On 29 September 1668, Nonsuch, under the command of Zachariah Gillam and guided by Médard des Groseilliers, anchored at the mouth of the Rupert River. In 1668, Rupert House or Charles Fort at Waskaganish on the south bank of Rupert River, was established as the first trading post, two years before the Hudson's Bay Company was formed. In October 1669 they returned to England