Fort William Historical Park
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| Established | 1973 |
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| Location | Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. |
| Type | Historical Park |
| Website | www |
| Official name | Fort William |
| Designated | 1923 |
Fort William Historical Park (formerly known as Old Fort William) is a Canadian historical site located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, that contains a reconstruction of the Fort William fur trade post as it existed in 1815. It officially opened on July 3, 1973. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1923.
The North West Company had a major depot at Grand Portage to the west of Fort William. After the rebel colonists' victory in the American Revolutionary War, Britain finally ceded the area to the United States (US) under the Jay Treaty of 1796, to settle the northern border. British/Canadian fur traders wanted to create a new center of operations to avoid US taxes. They moved the trading post north to what became Fort William on the Canadian side of the border.
Fort William Historical Park is known as a living history site. Numerous historic buildings have been reconstructed to show the range of the post, and costumed historical interpreters recreate Fort William of the year 1815. Fort William was then not primarily a settlement, but a central transport depot within the now-defunct North West Company's network of fur trade outposts. Due to its central role, Fort William was much larger, with more facilities than the average fur trade post. Reflecting this, Fort William Historical Park contains 42 reconstructed buildings, a reconstructed Ojibwa village, and a small farm.
Historical interpreters represent the many roles and cultures involved in the fur trade, including Scottish fur traders (people of capital), who often took Native American wives and had their families living with them; French Canadian voyageurs and workers, who also had wives from among the Natives; and native hunters and trappers. The native people in the Fort William area are predominantly Ojibwa and are represented accordingly among the interpreters.
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