The area was originally home to
Ojibway and
Cree indigenous people. In the 18th century,
Lake of the Woods began to be
exploited by European fur traders as a good source for fur and it became part of an
established trade route from the
Rainy River to
Rat Portage. The main trading posts were set up at
Rainy River and
Fort Frances, but circa 1804, an outpost was also established on Whitefish Lake (now known as Regina Bay, directly east of Sioux Narrows) by the
Northwest Company. In the 1820s, the area was surveyed in order to determine the international border between the United States and British North America. But further development was limited since the Ojibway restricted European travelers only to the regular trade routes. In 1873, the Dominion of Canada signed
Treaty 3, in which the Ojibway ceded vast tracts of territory to the Government of Canada. This permitted the first wave of settlers to arrive in the late 1870s or early 1880s. The construction of the
Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881 further accelerated exploration, settlement, logging, and mining. The outpost on Whitefish Lake, since 1821 owned by the
Hudson's Bay Company, was taken over by a private entrepreneur in the 1890s and operated until 1932. In 1895, a gold mine opened on Regina Bay, employing about eighty-five men and led to the formation of a settlement with a schoolhouse, miner's residences and a community hall. The mine was fully operational only until 1900 and thereafter operated intermittently. During that period until 1935, settlement remained sporadic and isolated, heavily dependent on the cyclical presence of mining and logging camps, and only accessible by boat or winter roads. The construction of what is now known as
Ontario Highway 71 in the 1930s resulted in permanent communities and opened the area to a booming outdoor tourism industry. == Demographics ==