For millennia, this land was an important place for the Anishinaabe and a natural meeting point where people came from across North and South America to trade and discuss governance issues. By the late 1700s, it was a prominent community where people lived and fished. The construction of the canal had a huge impact on their lives and livelihoods. In 1850, the Robinson Huron Treaty set aside Whitefish Island for the sole benefit and use of Batchewana First Nation, but the land was expropriated in 1905 for railway construction. No railway was ever built, and in 1992, after Hereditary Chief Edward James Sayers occupied the land for three years, Whitefish Island was returned to Batchewana First Nation.