Agriculture

Smoking pipes from the Woodland Period have been found in the Ottawa Valley, and tobacco was probably consumed in the region. It is not known if the crop was grown here, but in 1613, at the very end of the Woodland Period, Champlain witnessed the ceremonial offering of tobacco to the spirit of the Chaudières Falls (which were known as Asticou) near the site of this museum.

Some Native people living in the Valley in the early seventeenth century were also familiar with agricultural products. In 1613, Nibachis, an Algonquin chief, showed Champlain corn fields near his village. Agriculture may have existed in the region for some time before that, but it is difficult to estimate the significance of cultivated food during the Woodland Period.