Project looks to map Indigenous history in Kitchener's Williamsburg neighbourhood

Today, Williamsburg is a thriving and growing neighbourhood in Kitchener, but the area has a rich Indigenous history.

And a project currently underway aims to map historically significant sites in the area and provide information for people as they use recreational trails in the area.

Paula Whitlow is the Region of Waterloo's truth and reconciliation director who is Mohawk, Wolf Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River. She said Neutral People had inhabited the land up until approximately the 1640s. 

Whitlow described the Neutral People as "organic people" who "paid attention more … to nature." 

In explaining their day-to-day lives, she said that "men would be the one that would be out hunting and providing for the family and the women were the ones tending to the gardens or the livestock and the children." 

She said they got their name from the French because they didn't take sides during the conflict between the French and the Haudenosaunee Peoples as part of the Beaver Wars.   

"And they just wanted peace and they got along with everyone and basically just wanted to be left alone to do their thing and not get involved in other people's issues or politics," Whitlow said. 

Whitlow explained that Neutral Peoples were ultimately displaced or killed due to famine, disease and war, but were "absorbed" by other nations, like Anishnawbe and the Haudenosaunee.

Williamsburg officially became a part of Kitchener in 1971. As part of the communities in focus initiative, CBC Kitchener-Waterloo has taken a deep dive into Williamsburg, talking to residents, business owners, and historians, to understand where it came from and where it's going. 

Evidence of Indigenous life as far back as 1350

Archaeologists Gary Warrick, who has studied the Grand River watershed extensively, is working with Whitlow to piece together the Indigenous history of the region.

He said there are sites where villages would have been in Williamsburg that date as far back as 1350.

He said that between 1350 and 1550 there would've been as many as 500 to 1,000 inhabitants in the villages and it wasn't just in Williamsburg. 

"We know of about a dozen sites in Wilmot Township as well as Waterloo, Kitchener-Waterloo … that would date to that 200 year time period," Warrick said. 

The modern day boundaries of Williamsburg are from Fischer-Hallman Road to Trussler Road, east to west, and Highway 8 to Huron Road, north to south, according to the Williamsburg Community Association. 

Williamsburg was "surrounded by those village sites," Warrick said.

The project that Whitlow is now working on with Warrick aims to uncover, study and preserve the Indigenous history and archeological sites locally on behalf of the region. They intend to incorporate some of their findings in the hiking trail systems. 

"As you're walking down the trail you can learn about Indigenous history that occurred maybe right where you're walking," Whitlow said. 

The aim is to complete this project by the end of this year.