Huron vase of 500 AA (Before Today) found by Jean-Louis Courteau and Jacques Lech during a dive in the Lac des Seize Îles.
The discovery of a Huron vase in Lac des Seize Îles in 2013 brought a previously unknown history to this area from the depths and aroused great curiosity. It is an exceptional object because it has been preserved intact in the cool waters of the lake for 500 years. Analyses of lipid residues on its interior confirmed that it was a container for cooking sagamite, a porridge of meat, legumes, animal fat and herbs.
The region of the Petite Nation, Saumon, and Red River watersheds, which includes Lac-des-Seize-Îles, would have been the territory of the Weskarinis of the Algonquin nation. Samuel de Champlain (1574-1635) mentioned it twice during his 1613 voyage up and down the Ottawa River:
« Ainsi nous nous separasmes: & continuant noftre routte à mont ladite rivière, en trouvasmes une autre fort belle & spacieuse, qui vient d’une nation appelée, Ouescharini, lesquels se tiennent au nord d’icelle, & à 4journées de l’entrée. Ceste rivière est fort plaisante, à cause des belles îsles qu’elle contient, & des terres garnies de beaux bois clairs qui la bordent: & la terre est bonne pour le labourage.»
«En chemin nous rencontrasmes 9grands canaux de Ouesharini, avec 40hommes forts & puissans, qui venoient aux nouvelles qu’ils avoient euës...»
Les voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faits par le SR de Champlain, Paris 1632, p.188 and 206.
The ancient history of this nomadic hunter-gatherer people is being written as archaeological digs are carried out in the greater Laurentian region. Each discovery is valuable to these peoples of oral tradition who struggle to pass on their culture to younger generations because of the policy of cultural assimilation that followed colonization.