Between 1610 and 1632, five European expeditions seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific reached the Hudson and James bays where they recorded one face-to-face encounter with most probably an Inuit individual. Although evidence of human habitation was recorded, is was only in 1611 that Henry Hudson actually traded items with an Aboriginal and communicated by sign language about neighboring Cree trading parties. Hudson’s voyage, nevertheless, ended in failure. After having spent the winter near Point Comfort his crew mutinied and cast Hudson, his son, and seven of his men in a boat near Charlton Island. The rest of the crew returned to England on the Discovery and Hudson’s party is believed to have died on Danby Island (Lytwyn, 2002).
3D model of Fort Charles
After having wondered for several weeks on the shores of the James Bay seeking a practical location for settlement, the crew encountered a party of Crees at the entrance of the Rupert Bay (present day Waskaganish). On September 29, 1668 they established Charles Fort, the first English colonial settlement in what is now northern Canada. Gilliam spent the spring there trading with some 300 ‘Indians’ and ‘bought’ the Prince Rupert’s River “for little or nothing”. He returned to England in October 1669. On May 31, 1670, the newly-chartered company sent two ships to the bay with the first ‘country’ governor, a religious radical named Charles Bayley. The party set out building two houses and a dock for the ship. They consisted of:
" Three rooms a peace & as many severall floors “three levels”. The cellar held ya beer wee brewd there for our dayly drinking, together with the Beefe Pork and Butter[…] Wee had a large chimney built of bricks which wee carryed along with us, and wee spared not ye wood, that country affording enough to keep alwayes Summer within, while nothing but ice and snow are without doores. - (Rich, 1942:227 quoted in Chism, 1988). "
Cooke, A. 2000. James Thomas. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. University of Toronto/Université Laval.
Lytwyn, V.P. 2002. Muskekowuck Athinuwick: Original People of the Great Swampy Land. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
Pachano, J. 2011. The Cree and Social Impacts of Historic Events in James Bay. Cree Board of Health and Social Services James Bay, Orientation document for employees.