The First Inhabitants

Coteau-du-Lac was visited for thousands of years and was among the first inhabited places in the region. More than 7,000 years ago, during the Laurentian Archaic period, small nomadic hunting and gathering groups from the south and southwest made sporadic incursions into the St. Lawrence Lowlands in search of white-tailed deer, beaver, bear, and fish. For two or three thousand years, they regularly used Coteau-du-Lac as a spring stopping place and seasonal camp, in part because rapids upstream and downstream forced a portage there. Families traveling by canoe stayed for several weeks during fish spawning season, fished with harpoons, fish spears, and handlines, hunted along the Delisle River, and smoked fish over open-air hearths. When someone died from disease or accident, the body was buried face up in a shallow grave at the tip of the point with personal belongings and red ochre. From about 3,000 years ago to the beginning of the 16th century, during the Woodland period, occupation became much less regular. People still stopped there to portage and fish, but usually only for a few days, apparently sheltering under overturned canoes rather than in built camps. Woodland peoples are distinguished by their production and use of pottery for cooking, preserving, and carrying food. Over time, their hunting, fishing, and gathering economy gave way to agriculture based on corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers, and this shift made Woodland populations more sedentary. By the time Cartier explored Canada in 1534 and 1535, these Amerindians lived in villages between Québec and Montréal and continued to fish at sites along the St. Lawrence, including Coteau-du-Lac.

Quebec · Canada