page_title: La Mauricie National Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: La Mauricie National Park / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Gîte Wabenaki dans le parc national de la Mauricie
context_page_description: La Mauricie National Park is located near Shawinigan in the Laurentian mountains, in the Mauricie region of Quebec, Canada. It covers 536 km² in the southern Canadian Shield region bordering the Saint Lawrence lowlands. The park contains 150 lakes and many ponds.
  The park lies within the Eastern forest-boreal transition ecoregion. The forests in this region were logged from the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century. The park's forests have regrown and contain a mixture of conifers and mixed deciduous trees.
  Wildlife in the park includes moose, black bears, beavers and otters. It supports a small number of wood turtles, rare in Canada. The park is a popular location for camping, canoeing and kayaking.
  The park is named after the nearby Saint-Maurice River to the east of the park. The Matawin River flows along the west and north borders of the park.
context_section_description: The earliest human remains in the park date from the Archaic period in North America, between 7000 and 3000 BC. The 34 "protohistoric" archeological sites suggest that Native Americans who frequented the park lived in small family groups. They mainly occupied the valley of lakes Antigamac and Wapizagonke and  fished, hunted and gathered. A cliff of Lake Wapizagonke also contains cave paintings, which is one of the few witnesses to the spirituality of Native Americans in that era. Until the 17th century, the Attikamekw and Algonquian peoples respectively occupied the northern and southern basins of the Saint-Maurice River, making a living mainly by trap and hunting. The Abenaki used the park area in the middle of the 19th century for hunting and trade.
  At the beginning of the 19th century logging began. It began by cutting white and red pines for lumber. This lasted until 1925, when trees of good diameter became scarce. The forest industry then turned instead to wood for paper, which made the Mauricie one of the largest paper producers newspaper for the first half of the 20th century. In addition to logging, the industry greatly altered the balance of forests by planting the white spruce 426 hectares (1,050 acres) and causing forest fires in 1910 and 1954.
  At the end of the 19th century, rich American tourists settled in the area and opened private hunting and fishing clubs. The first three were the open Shawinigan Club 1883, the Laurentian Club in 1886 and the Club Commodore in 1905. Thirteen other less prestigious clubs settled on the territory of the park between 1940 and the creation of the park in 1970. Membership in the clubs was selective and members enjoyed the right to hunt and fish in the territory. Although they allowed a certain amount of nature protection in the territory of the park, these clubs introduced many exotic fish species into the lakes. Of these clubs, there remain only the "Wabenaki and Andrew lodges", old properties of the Laurentian Club located on the edge of lac à la Pêche (Lake of Fisheries). They were acquired by Parks Canada in 1972 and were converted into dormitories and rooms for visitors. A cottage at "lac des cinq" (Lake of the Five), once owned by the Brown family, is today used by the park staff.
  The park was created on August 21, 1970 after a federal-provincial agreement. This creation stopped the activities of the 16 private clubs in its territory.
caption: Cottage Wabenaki
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