Since the late 20th century, archeologists have found large 16th-century villages of the Wendat (Huron) in the northern Lake Ontario region, which is where they believe the people coalesced as a distinct group.

Later they migrated south and by the early 17th century had settled in their historical territory of Wendake in the Georgian Bay region.

Until the middle of the 17th century, the Wendake ancestors occupied a vast territory [citation needed] straddling part of what is now the United States (from Detroit to south-eastern Ontario (Penetanguishene and Midland) and Quebec.

Most had been decimated by infectious disease epidemics, to which they had no natural immunity; survivors were attacked by wars, especially by the Iroquois Confederacy, who pushed from the south (present-day New York) trying to control hunting grounds and the fur trade.

This marked the beginning of a period of exile for the 300 or so Wendat who remained, an era during which they would occupy as many as six different sites in the province of Quebec.

Subsequently, the Wendat temporarily resided in Beauport, Notre Dame de Foy, L'Ancienne-Lorette and then New Lorette in 1673.

In August 1999, these nations joined the contemporary Wendat Confederacy, pledging to provide mutual aid to each other in a spirit of peace, kinship, and unity.