James Bay

James Bay, southern extension of Hudson Bay, located in Canada between the provinces of Québec and Ontario. A saltwater body, the bay occupies an area of 32,000 sq km (12,400 sq mi) and is relatively shallow, with an average depth of 60 m (200 ft). The James Bay region supports coniferous forests and numerous species of wildlife, including beaver, lynx, caribou, black bear, and moose. Summers in the region are short and cool, while winters are long and frigid; the waters of James Bay freeze every winter.

Many islands are located in the bay; all of them are uninhabited and those that exist at low tide belong to Nunavut. Akimiski is the largest, measuring 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq mi). Eight main rivers flow into James Bay. The rivers originating in northern Québec are the Eastmain, La Grande Rivière, Rupert, Harricanaw and Nottaway, and the rivers originating in Ontario are the Moose, Albany and Attawapiskat.

There are six small indigenous communities along the shores of James Bay: Moosonee and Attawapiskat in Ontario, and Chisasibi, Eastmain, Fort-Rupert and Wemindji in Québec. Chisasibi, the largest, is a Cree community at the mouth of La Grande Rivière in Québec. Originally called Fort George, it was moved to higher ground because its river valley was flooded by the completion in 1985 of the first phase of the James Bay Project, a hydroelectric installation consisting of a series of massive dams on the rivers leading into the bay. Moosonee, the second largest community, is located near the mouth of the Moose River and is linked to southern Canada by the Ontario Northland Railway.

In 1610 the English explorer Henry Hudson became the first European to reach the bay. James Bay is named for Captain Thomas James, an English navigator who explored it in 1631; both Hudson and James had been searching for the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia through arctic North America. In 1668 the Hudson's Bay Company, seeking furs, sent its first ship to James Bay. The voyage was a commercial success, and James Bay became an important fur-trading region for the next 200 years. Each year, Hudson's Bay Company ships arrived from London loaded with supplies for its trading posts and returned to London loaded with furs trapped by the Cree. Today, furs are shipped to world markets by air, rail, and road.