The territory of Sagkeeng originally was to have commenced one mile upstream from the Fort Alexander trading post formerly occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Files of the federal Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs department indicate that the Chief and Council requested the boundaries to be moved to its present location.[when?]

Some of the Sagkeeng Ojibway people are direct descendants of the Anishinaabe tribes that migrated from a very ancient settlement in the present-day Sault Ste.

"[5] This means that some Sagkeeng forefathers were always from this area and they mixed, married, and traded daughters with Anishinaabe and other native tribes.

The Anishinaabe peoples began trading with the first French immigrants just a few hundred years ago in this Fort Alexander area now known as Sagkeeng territory.

By 1812, the Bas de la Rivière gardens were selling vegetables to the incoming Red River immigrants.

After the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Companies merged in 1821, Fort Alexander continued to be operated as a trading post for the natives and immigrants in the region.

The French Oblates of Mary Immaculate nuns ran the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School for Indigenous children.

[3] The nation has a dance group Sagkeeng's Finest, who, in 2012, won the first and only season of Canada's Got Talent against a total of 244 other acts.

[10][11][12] On October 18, 2000, the Canadian Press reported that Perry Fontaine, the director of the Virginia Fontaine Addictions Foundation, a Native addictions treatment centre located on Sagkeeng First Nation—and 74 other foundation staff (including CEO Ken Courchene) attended a cruise to the Caribbean that was termed a "staff retreat," which required the then-addictions center be closed.

According to the RCMP, Perry Fontaine along with his wife and daughter offered bribes to Cochrane, who accepted a $50,000 payment on 11 December 1996; four season tickets for NHL hockey games in Ottawa in 1998, 1999, and 2000; a blue 1997 Jeep Cherokee sport-utility vehicle in April 1998; a red 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee in July 1999; a green 2000 Nissan Xterra sport-utility vehicle for his son Lucas Cochrane in May 2000; free trips for Cochrane and his family between July 1999 and October 2000; and two income tax receipts for fake donations of $5,000 each for the years 1997 and 1998.