Indigenous culture

For more than 2000 years, Indigenous peoples settled on the shore at Bawating meaning, "the place of the rapids". The French, arriving in the area in the 1600s, called the Anishinaabe Saulteaux and the settlements on both sides of the river became known as Sault Ste. Marie.

Père Galinée wrote in his 1670 narrative:

...the river forms at this place a rapid so teeming with fish that the Indians [sic] could easily catch enough to feed 10,000 men.

"Attikamek" (or adikameg) - for which this trail is named - is the Ojibwemowin word for whitefish and means "caribou of the waters." Ojibwe fishers came from miles around to harvest this bountiful food source. Fishing was done by dipping nets in the rushing waters while skilfully manoeuvring birchbark canoes among the eddies and pools of the rapids.

Whitefish Island has been designated a national historic site. In 1980, the Batchewana First Nation launched a land claim for Whitefish Island. The island is now the property of the Batchewana First Nation.