Fort William Historical Park

Fort William was the inland headquarters of the North West Company, where the Montreal canoe brigades met the wintering partners from the interior each summer for the Great Rendezvous: trade goods exchanged for furs, accounts settled, and a gathering of Scots partners, French-Canadian voyageurs, Ojibwe and Métis families that made this one of the busiest places in the interior of the continent. The reconstruction has forty-two buildings on a site upriver from the original, staffed in first-person interpretation set in 1815, with a working farm, a canoe shed building birchbark canoes, and demonstrations of the trades that supplied the trade.

What you actually see

• The forty-two buildings - a full fur trade headquarters reconstructed.
• The canoe shed - birchbark canoes built by hand on site.
• The Great Rendezvous - the annual gathering re-enacted as an event.
• The first-person interpretation - staff in character in the year 1815.

When to go

May to October for full operation; the fort runs winter events including an ice fishing derby and a Christmas programme but with limited buildings. The Rendezvous re-enactment is in July.

Honest expectations

Most buildings are closed outside the main season. The site is large with a lot of walking. First-person interpretation frustrates visitors wanting direct answers.

Nearby

Kakabeka Falls lies west; Thunder Bay centre is north.