Wemindji, Quebec

Coordinates: 53°0′N 78°48′W / 53.000°N 78.800°W / 53.000; -78.800

Wemindji (Cree: ᐐᒥᓂᒌ/Wîminicî) is a small Cree community on Paint Hills Bay off James Bay at the mouth of the Maquatua River in Quebec, Canada. The community has a population of 1238 people (2001 Canadian census).

Wemindji (Cree for "red ochre mountain") gets its name from the red pigment found in the hills surrounding it. It has also been known as "Nouveau-Comptoir".

Wemindji is a fairly new community comprising Cree families originally living at the trading post on an island in the Vieux-Comptoir River, known as Vieux-Comptoir or its English equivalent "Old Factory". This post was founded in the seventeenth century and was alternately under British or French control. In 1959 the community was relocated about 45 km north to its present location. The current chief is Dennis Georgekish.

Wemindji is accessible by air (Wemindji Airport) and, since 1995, by car over a gravel road linking it to the James Bay Road.

Wemindji (Cree village municipality)

Wemindji is a Cree village municipality in the territory of Eeyou Istchee in northern Quebec; it has a distinct legal status and classification from other kinds of village municipalities in Quebec: Naskapi village municipalities, northern villages (Inuit communities), and ordinary villages.

As with all other Cree village municipalities in Quebec, there is a counterpart Cree reserved land of the same name located nearby: Wemindji.

Despite the title of "village municipality" and the formalities that go along with it (for instance, having a mayor), Statistics Canada lists it (and all other Cree village municipalities in Quebec) as having no resident population or residential infrastructure (dwellings); it is the Cree reserved lands that are listed as having population and residential dwellings in the 2011 census, the 2006 census, and earlier censuses.

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