Fur trade days Fort Michipicoten was constructed at the mouth of the
Michipicoten River. It was at the junction of the main fur trade route from Montreal westward and the route to James Bay via the
Missinaibi River. French explorers reached the area by the mid 17th century, and a post was built early in the next century. The site was on the south bank of the river, opposite the mouth of the
Magpie River. By 1729, it was an outpost of
Fort Kaministiquia under command of
Vérendrye's Postes du Nord. When the British conquered Canada in 1763, this post was abandoned. Four years later, it was re-opened on the same site by fur traders
Alexander Henry the elder and
Jean Baptiste Cadotte. The route from James Bay was explored by
Edward Jarvis (1775) and
Philip Turnor (1781). In 1783, it was taken over by the
North West Company, based in Montreal.
Modern Mining attempts began as early as the late 1660s. William Teddy discovered
gold on
Wawa Lake in 1897. The population of Wawa village quickly grew with 1,700 claims staked in 1898. However, most gold production stopped by 1906. Beginning in 1914 with the completion of the
Algoma Central Railway, gold production commenced again from 22 prospects. In 1898, the town site at what is now called "the Mission" was registered as "Michipicoten City." In 1899, Wawa was surveyed and plotted as a town and registered as Wawa City. In the latter half of the 1950s, the town's name was temporarily changed to Jamestown in honour of Sir
James Hamet Dunn, but it was later returned to Wawa at the request of the community's residents. Gold production had slowed by 1906, but as mining technology improved, additional amounts began to be extracted from the area. Gold mining in the Wawa area prospered and receded several times in the 20th century, and it continues today. Notable producers include the Grace Mine (1902–1944), which produced 15,191 ounces, the Minto Mine (1929–1942), which produced 37,678 ounces, the Parkhill Mine (1902–1944), which produced 54,301 ounces, and the Renabie Mine (1920–1991), which produced 1.1 million ounces. for young hitchhikers traveling along Highway 17. The project was directed by Professor K.C.A. Dawson and supported by the federal government as part of its youth employment program. The results of this fieldwork at several important sites were never published. The records are currently held by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.{{cite web Throughout the 1990s, Wawa and the Algoma Ore Division continued to be challenged by international market problems that plagued both the gold and iron mining industries. In December 1997, Algoma Steel announced that it could no longer support the high cost of extracting low-grade iron at Algoma Ore Division. Although Wawa's mountain of iron ore had more to give, operations were shut down in June 1998, one hundred years after iron was first discovered in this remote corner of northern Algoma. Wawa suffered a population decline after the closures of Helen Mine and the sinter plant. Its main industries have been forestry and tourism. In recent years, diamond prospecting and proposals to create a
trap rock mine on the shore of Lake Superior have been developed; however, no mining activities of any kind have yet been established. In October 2007 Weyerhauser, which operated an oriented strandboard mill 30 kilometres east of the town, announced an indefinite shutdown of its mill. The final production shift ran at the end of December 2007. Given low demand for wood products, the likelihood of the mill reopening was marginal at best. Since the shutdown, Wawa's economy has suffered a near complete collapse, as the closure resulted in over 135 lost jobs, and more residents left the area. This has had a spinoff effect on other businesses and on the town's population. It peaked at close to 5,600 in the 1990s but has since dropped to under 3,000, according to the 2011 Canadian census. The collapse of the forestry industry in the first decade of the 2000s also adversely affected the neighbouring communities of
Dubreuilville and
White River. Wawa, the area's largest settlement, has faced difficulties in attracting new industry to the community and region. == Geography ==