The community comprises three reserves (Eel Ground #2, Big Hole Tract #8 (south half), and Renous #12).

[2] Eel Ground principally occupies lands adjoining the City of Miramichi, New Brunswick, and members of the two communities have no doubt interacted from the time of earliest European settlement.

About 1648, Nicolas Denys, Sieur de Fronsac, established a fort and trading post nearby, "on the North side of the Miramichi, at the forks of the river".

[3][4][5][6] The band was officially recognised by the British in 1783, soon after the French defeat in the Seven Years' War.

For the Mi'kmaq, the nearby junction of the Northwest and Main Southwest branches of the Miramichi River had long served as a natural meeting point.