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Trading For Furs

Colour painting with eight people snow is covering the ground and the trees. Some of the people are carrying rifles, others are carrying blankets, furs. There are two toboggans carrying unidentifiable objects.

Source: Oshawa Museum, Archival Collection
Artist: E.S. Shrapnel (1845-1920)
Publication Source: Upper Canada Sketches, Thomas Conant. 1898
Date: 1898

French trading Post – Cabane de Plomb was in operation prior to 1759, the name meant Cabin of Lead, possibly because lead shot was an important commodity in the fur trade with the First Nations.  According to the Danville Mapp from 1755 the Cabane de Plomb was located on the shoreline of Lake Ontario between the Oshawa and Harmony Creeks. The exact location is still debated today. It was situated at the southern terminus of the Scugog Carrying Place Trail.

During the 18th century, the Cabane de Plomb and other forts like it were significant during the fur trade when the French competed with the English, from Oswego, in trading furs with the Mississauga (Michi Saagiig) Anishnaabeg people on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

Trading Posts such as this were built at strategic points at the mouths of rivers or southern ends of portage routes.