 The river has here a significant drop, forming several cascades which give the village its name.Starting in the mid-seventeenth century until 1700, many military expeditions arrived at this place in order to portage around the cascades on the Saint Lawrence River.The first reference to Pointe-des-Cascades appeared in a text of Louis-Armand de Lahontan in 1684 and on a map of Deshayes in 1695, when Pointe des Cascades was included in the Vaudreuil Lordship.