The Eastmain River is a river in northwestern Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 which rises in north central Quebec and flows 800 km

1 E5 m

A length of 100 kilometers , as a rough amount, is relatively common in measurements on Earth and for some astronomical objects.It is the altitude at which the FAI defines spaceflight to begin....

 west to drain into James Bay

James Bay

James Bay is a large body of water on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean. James Bay borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario; islands within the bay are part of Nunavut...

. 'East Main' is an old name for the east side of James Bay. This river drains an area of 46,400 km². The First Nations

First Nations

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

 Cree

Cree

The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...

 village of Eastmain

Eastmain, Quebec

Eastmain is a Cree community located on James Bay at the mouth of the Eastmain River, Quebec, Canada. It is the smallest of the coastal Cree villages with a population of 606 people...

 is located at the mouth of the river.

Since the late 1980s, most of the waters of the Eastmain River have been diverted and flow northwards through the Opinaca Reservoir, with a surface area of about 950 km², and into the Robert-Bourassa Reservoir

Robert-Bourassa Reservoir

The Robert-Bourassa Reservoir is a man-made lake in northern Quebec, Canada. It was created in the mid 1970s as part of the James Bay Project and provides the needed water for the Robert-Bourassa and La Grande-2-A generating stations. It has a maximum surface area of , and a surface elevation...

 of Hydro-Québec

Hydro-Québec

Hydro-Québec is a government-owned public utility established in 1944 by the Government of Quebec. Based in Montreal, the company is in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity across Quebec....

's La Grande Complex

James Bay Project

The James Bay Project is a series of hydroelectric development with a combined installed capacity of over 16,000 megawatts built since 1974 for Hydro-Québec by the on the La Grande and other rivers of Northern Quebec....

. The remainder of the Eastmain River only contains a fraction of its former volume, permitting freeze-up in winter (see photo).

A further hydroelectric project on the upper Eastmain River is currently under construction (2005). The project was part of the original hydroelectric project provided for by the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement

James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement

The James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement was an Aboriginal land claim settlement, approved in 1975 by the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, and later slightly modified in 1978 by the Northeastern Quebec Agreement, through which Quebec's Naskapi First Nations joined the treaty...

 of 1975. The Eastmain Reservoir

Eastmain Reservoir

The Eastmain Reservoir is a reservoir which lies about 800 kilometres north of Montreal. The reservoir is part of a project known as the Eastmain-1-A/Sarcelle/Rupert Project which is designed to increase hydroelectric power for the Canadian province...

 will eventually have a surface area of about 600 km² and the Eastmain-1 power plant will generate a maximum of 900 MW.

The Eastmain river was named after the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

's East Main District which was located east and south of Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...

. One of their oldest trading

Fur trade

The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...

posts was established at Eastmain in 1685.