The hamlet, which is in what is now known as Big Lakes County, is located ten kilometres south of the earliest non-Indigenous settlement in the area, where the North West Company established a post in 1802 at Buffalo Bay.

[4] The Lesser Slave Lake had considerable populations of Cree and Metis, and Grouard was considered to be a northern Alberta hub for trade and transportation.

[6] The site, which was then known as Stony Point in Cree, was chosen for the historical signing of Treaty 8 between representatives of the Queen Victoria and various First Nations of the Lesser Slave Lake area, the Cree, Beaver, Chipewyan nations, on whose traditional lands, the Crown wanted to "open for settlement, immigration, trade, travel, mining, lumbering" etc.

In 1916 the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway (EDBCR) bypassed Grouard by building just 12 miles (19 km) south of the town, choosing instead Lesser Slave Lake's southern shore.

First Nations students received adult education basic training in Grouard at the Centre to prepare to become instructors in the area covered by the CVC's.

[15][14] In 1986, major changed were taking place in the Alberta Vocational College (AVC) without consulting those affected, including moving dozens of married students living quarters, programs and materials to High Prairie from Grouard.

Harold Cardinal, leader of the Indian Association of Alberta for nine terms and former chief of Sucker Creek First Nation asked the Education Minister Dave Russell to not let education at AVC be downgraded and to not ignore the formal political structures First National already had in place to deal with the issue.

A working committee composed of First Nations members was created and it was agreed that the college programs would not be moved from Grouard to High Prairie without consultation.

[17] The Native Cultural Arts Museum is a part of Northern Lakes College and is located in the Moosehorn Lodge at the Grouard campus.

[18] The Museum's collection celebrates various aspects of Indigenous cultures, with a special focus on Métis peoples and the Woodland Cree of northern Alberta.

[21] Previously, the names of ten children who had died at St. Bernard's had been listed on the NCTRC and UNESCO Memorial site.

[25] Their involvement in forest management respects the constitutional rights of First Nations and Métis Settlements to engage in hunting, fishing, and trapping and for other traditional uses, such as for burial, ceremonial, historical purposes.