Originally used by the French to designate a band of Algonquin Indians who lived near the lake, the name was descriptive of their location halfway between the trading posts on the Hudson Bay and those on the Ottawa River.

[2][3] The river was an important fur trading route for the Hudson's Bay Company.

From 1914 Until 2014, pulp and paper, centered on the town of Iroquois Falls, was an important industry in the heavily forested region through which it flows.

The experience of surveying the river for the purposes of building this plant was the inspiration for folk singer Wade Hemsworth's "The Black Fly Song".

Until April 2005, this park included all the public lands stretching along the Abitibi River to Iroquois Falls, but most of these were deregulated because the significant amount of private land within the area that made the management of the waterway class provincial park difficult.