History
The area was inhabited for thousands of years by cultures of First Nations peoples. At the time of European contact, when Montreal was founded, the Mohawk Nation, an Iroquoian-speaking people based in upstate New York, used this territory as a hunting ground.
The Sulpician Order established a Roman Catholic mission and trading post at what became the adjacent Kanesatake. The Mohawk made this a new base and were granted a nine-mile square portion of land by the French king in 1716. The Sulpician Order was granted a narrow strip next to theirs. Unhappy with that, they arranged a change to the grant without informing the Mohawk.
A niobium mine (also known as columbium) was operated just off the Ste-Sophie road not far from the Trappist monastery.
Read more about this topic: Oka, Quebec
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