Île-à-la-Crosse occupies a central location in the Canadian subarctic region, positioned along the southern entryway to the Methye Portage which is a continental divide where waters flow to both the Arctic Ocean and the Hudson Bay.

The positioning of Île-à-la-Crosse at the entryway to the English River District encouraged increasingly interdependent economic, social, and political activity.

This strategic position helped establish the community as a meeting place that promoted the cultural and socio-economic exchanges of the Cree, Dene, Scots, English, French, and Metis peoples.

In doing so, Pond helped establish a practice making Île-à-la-Crosse the central passageway and resting spot for those moving through the North-Western Territory.

The next year, the North West Company hired Patrick Small as the first trader at the post year-round, showing the significance of the village in handling administration for the larger district.

Competition caused spurs of violence in the region over the control of economic resources, escalating with the arrival of Hudson's Bay Company.

[10] The 1821 Hudson's Bay Company merger made the trade post at Île-à-la-Crosse the administrative centre of the English River District.

[8] The centrality allowed for a concentration of social and economic relations creating conditions to become a Métis homeland because of the direct involvement of and relationality held by the children descending from Cree and Dene women and men of the fur trade.

[10] Starting after the establishment of the headquarters, the Hudson's Bay Company began trying to reduce the number of people posted to limit the amount of responsibility to support the trade families.

The same year, Provencher received another letter from Jean-Baptiste Thibault, who perceived that it was urgent for the Catholic Church to send missionaries to Île-à-la-Crosse because of the eagerness of the Métis to convert and the imminent competition with Protestants.

[8] The Hudson’s Bay Company controlled the region outside the Red River Colony, known as the North-Western Territory or Rupert's Land, through strict management of transportation systems leading to their established trading posts.

[8] The ban remained in place until the decision by George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, granted missionaries access prompting the Catholic mission network to extend into the North-Western Territory.

[8] Joseph-Bruno Guigues, the superior Oblate General, chose the Fathers, Alexandre-Antonin Taché and Louis-François Richer Laflèche to set up the foundation for the mission.

[8] Taché and Laflèche arrived in September 1846, the pair were given a cabin left abandoned by the North West Company and began holding ceremonies the following spring.

[8] Saint-Jean-Baptiste also became a transshipment point for both manufactured goods and religious items sent from the Red River Colony and a conduit for communication into the disparate missions in the North.

[8] On November 25, 1860, the Sisters of Charity established the boarding school located within the Saint Bruno Convent that served to both educate and provide medical services.

[9] The language was developed as a means of communicating throughout the communities located in-between Île-à-la-Crosse, Green Lake, and Buffalo Narrows.

[18] Enrollment in the boarding school run by the Sisters of Charity began with nine girls and six boys in 1860, which increased to seventeen students in 1862, nineteen in 1863, twenty-two in 1864, twenty-eight in 1865, and thirty in 1866.