Sheshatshiu is an Innu village on a narrow inlet on Grand Lake, in central Labrador, at the far western end of Lake Melville. It is about 30 kilometres north of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, site of a Canadian Forces Base where NATO training flights were once conducted.

Three major river systems come together in the region where the Innu people have lived for generations. Sheshatshiu, which means “narrow place in the river,” was a traditional summer gathering place for the Innu who followed the caribou herds, their main source of food and clothing.

Innu means “human being.” The language is “Innu-aimun,” which is part of the Algonquian group of aboriginal languages. The Innu refer to their homeland in Labrador and Eastern Quebec as Nitassinan. Most of the Innu in Sheshatshiu are bilingual, speaking both Innu-aimun and English.

The first European contact with Sheshatshiu came in 1743 when a French merchant named Louise Fornel established a trading post on what became a major travel route for the inland fur industry.

The Hudson’s Bay Company founded its own trading post at nearby Northwest River 1836. In 1914, Sir Wilfred Grenfell built a hospital,orphanage, school, and student dormitory at Northwest River, directly across the narrow mouth of the river from Sheshatshiu.

A Roman Catholic church was built at Sheshatshiu in 1957. At that time, both the church and the government began to pressure the Innu to settle down. Many people lived in traditional tents or a few houses around the church. More houses were built in the 1980s, as well as a school and a clinic. Today it is a village of about 1,000 people, most of them Innu.