The oral tradition indicates that the Mississaugas played a key role in Anishinabe battles with Iroquois.
It also describes how the settlement of Mississaugas into southern Ontario dates from the final removal
of the Iroquois from the region. According to Chief Robert Paudash, the Mississaugas first defeated a
party of Mohawks on an island in Georgian Bay named Pequahkoodebaminis (Skull Island). The Mississaugas then travelled along the Severn River to Lake Simcoe where they divided into two groups.
The main group continued east to Balsam Lake, and from there down through the Trent waterway to
the Bay of Quinté.
A second group of Mississaugas travelled south from Lake Simcoe along the Holland and Humber
Rivers. The southern route followed by the Mississaugas, known as the Toronto Carrying Place, was an
ancient and well known Aboriginal overland route linking Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay. Aboriginal
peoples had long used it to avoid the long water passage via Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron. French
explorers learned of its existence from Aboriginal people in the mid-1600s. In the 1700s French traders,
followed by Northwest Company traders, used this route as it proved a shorter and more efficient link
between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron than any alternatives at the time.
