Huron-Wendat Villages on the Humber River
In the late 1800s, Aboriginal artifacts, perhaps Huron-Wendat in origin, were found up on the edge of the valley, not far from here. The Huron-Wendat lived for centuries along the waterways flowing into Lake Ontario, including along the Humber River. The remnants of their villages have often been identified by their distinctive ceramic vessels, tobacco pipes, stone axes, and bone tools, dating to between 1200 and 1580. The Huron-Wendat then moved north to land between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay (still known today as Huronia) to consolidate their communities into a confederacy.
The Huron-Wendat were accomplished traders with extensive networks throughout northeastern North America and beyond. They made contact with the French in 1609, and welcomed the first of many French visitors, Étienne Brûlé, to southern Ontario in 1610.
Approaching a Huron-Wendat village, French travellers encountered well-tended fields of corn, beans, and squash. Agriculture, supplemented by fishing, gathering, and hunting, allowed some Huron-Wendat villages to grow to nearly 2,000 people. Surrounded by fields and situated near rivers or creeks, villages of longhouses were positioned to command a view over the surrounding territory, and were sometimes surrounded by a palisade to protect their inhabitants.
Huron-Wendat use of the Carrying Place trail along the Humber River likely became occasional after 1600, as this route was threatened by their enemies, the Five Nations Iroquois. Displaced from their homeland by 1650, many Huron-Wendat moved to the Quebec City area where they remain today. While urban development has since destroyed many of their former village sites on the Humber, traces of these settlements may still be found in the yards and gardens that border the river.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.