(c) All information Copyright Algonquin Nation Secretariat
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| By the mid-1800s, the effect of timber cutting and settlement in the traditional Alqonquin territories was becoming apparent. Traditional hunting and trapping territories were being disrupted or displaced. Family hunting units were finding themselves unable to maintain their traditional economies with the competition from white settlers. The Oblate missionaries began petitioning the government to set aside reserve lands for the Algonquins | ||
 Above: Timiskaming youth, 1913. Photo taken by Frank Speck. | ||
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In August of 1851, the Legislature of the Province of Canada passed An Act to authorize the setting apart of Lands for the use of certain Indian Tribes in Lower Canada. Under the terms of the act, a maximum of 230,000 acres of northern Quebec. Among the various tracts listed, a total of 38,400 acres was set apart on "Lake Témiscamingue" for the Tribes described as "Nepissingues, Algonquins and Outaouais" - or, more particularly, as the "Nomadic Tribes inhabiting the Country watered by the Ottawa, adjacent to the Hudson's Bay Territory". |
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The government agreed to set up a second reserve for the Algonquins living on the eastern part of the traditional territory in Maniwaki (Kitigan Zibi). Unfortunately, the other Algonquin bands living further into the territory were completely ignored. | ||
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The lands set out in the 1853 Order in Council on Lake Temiscamingue were officially described as a "Tract extending along the River Ottawa or des Quinzes 6 miles in breadth from the divisional boundary between Upper and Lower Canada at the head of Lake Temiscamingue, by ten miles in depth". The original boundary of the reserve extended in the west as far as the Blanche River in what is now known as Belle Valley, Ontario By 1875, however, the western boundary had been arbitrarily cut back to the rang Nedelec of the Township of Nedelec, Quebec. (Click here to find the original plan for the Timiskaming reserve).
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