Meductic Indian Village / Fort Meductic

Meductic Indian Village / Fort Meductic, also known as Medoctec or Mehtawtik ("The end of the path"), was a Wolastoqey settlement until the mid-eighteenth century, in New Brunswick, Canada. It was located near the confluence of the Eel River and Saint John River, four miles upriver from present-day Lakeland Ridges. The fortified village of Meductic was the principal settlement of the Wolastoqey First Nation from before the 17th century until the middle of the 18th, and it was an important fur trading centre. (The other two significant native villages in the region were the Abenaki village of Norridgewock (present-day Madison, Maine) on the Kennebec River and Penobscot (present-day Penobscot Indian Island Reservation) on the Penobscot River. Only during King George's War, after the French established Saint Anne (present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick), did the village Aukpaque, present-day Springhill, New Brunswick, become of equal importance to Meductic). The village contained Fort Meductic, which the Wolastoqiyik had built before the arrival of the French to defend against Mohawk attacks. The Mohawk were one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in present-day New York, south of the St. Lawrence River and generally west of the Hudson River. This is reported to have been the first Fort in Acadia. Father Joseph Aubery re-established the mission in 1701.