page_title: Nipissing First Nation
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Nipissing First Nation / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Garden Village with Lake Nipissing in background, Ontario, Canada
context_page_description: Nipissing First Nation is a long-standing community of Nishnaabeg peoples located along the shorelines of Lake Nipissing in northern Ontario. They are referred to by many names in European historical records, since the colonists often adopted names given to them by other nations.
  The Nipissing are part of the Anishinaabe peoples, a grouping of people speaking Algonquin languages, which includes the Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Algonquins. This broad heritage is likely the result of the Nipissings' living at a geographical crossroads, a watershed divide.
context_section_description: Lake Nipissing drains via the French River into Georgian Bay and, to the east of Lake Nipissing, Trout Lake drains via the Mattawa River into the Ottawa River. Living at the crossroads between two watersheds, the Nipissing were key to trade to the east, west, north and south of Lake Nipissing. The French portaged the watershed divide extensively to reach the Great Lakes by canoe from their settlements around Montreal on the Saint Lawrence River.
  To the west the Nipissing trade routes extended as far as Lake Nipigon and their Ojibwa neighbours, and to the north as far as James Bay, where they traded with the Cree and, later, the English. Their trade network to the east extended as far as present-day Quebec City, also on the Saint Lawrence. The Iroquoian-speaking Huron people lived nearby to the south. Archaeological evidence shows that the Nipissing integrated some Huron styles and techniques in their pottery.
  They obtained food primarily through hunting, fishing, and gathering. Their extensive trading likely allowed them to supplement their diets with corn, beans and squash as well, which were staple crops cultivated by many First Nations peoples. The land in the lake valleys would have supported some horticulture.
  Today Nipissing First Nation lies between the city of North Bay and the municipality of West Nipissing in northeastern Ontario. Most members of the First Nation reside on the First Nations reserve of Nipissing Indian Reserve 10.
caption: Waterfront on Lake Nipissing in Garden Village
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