The Mission itself is surrounded by a high palisade and contains a chapel, refectory (dining hall), dormitory (sleeping area), workshops (carpentry and blacksmith), and pens for animals.

Due to ongoing warfare between the Mohawks and French in Quebec, the Onondagas were anxious to broker peace between the two parties.

The French built a stockade and a few buildings overlooking Onondaga Lake (Ganantaa in Iroquois).

In addition to the Jesuit missionaries and their Doneé servants/tradesmen, a contingent of French Coureur des bois (Runners of the Wood) were sent to defend the mission.

After two years, the Mohawks threatened to attack the mission, and a new French Governor lost interest in the project.

In the 1930s, a replica of Sainte Marie de Ganentaa was built on a bluff overlooking Onondaga Lake as part of the Works Progress Administration/WPA program.

However, a "wild west" style fort was built instead of a more historically accurate French mission.

Starting in the 1970s it was run by Onondaga County Parks with costumed interpreters who portrayed the French and Haudenosaunee who had lived there.

This allowed Sainte Marie to have a variety of displays about Native and French culture ca.

The Friends of Historic Onondaga Lake (FoHOL) formed as a non-profit volunteer based fund-raising organization that offered to run the site for the county.

In 2004 Onondaga County Parks formed an agreement with FoHOL that the organization's volunteers would run the site, provide programming, and raise money to fund such endeavours.

Despite this, Matthew J. Millea, the Deputy County Executive for Physical Services for the Mahoney administration,[5] insisted that the current project did not need to follow the LWCF.