The Kelly Lake Cree people are descendants of the Cree and Beaver peoples who have lived in this territory since time immemorial and of the Iroquois trappers and voyageurs who came to the territory with the North West Company in the 18th century.
Through generations of living and working on the land, the Iroquois intermarried with neighbouring Cree and Beaver peoples. Today, the Kelly Lake people proudly identify as Cree people, speak the Woods Cree dialect of the Cree language, engage in Cree cultural practices and hold and value Cree knowledge and beliefs related to KLCN territory and to community life.
Though KLCN ancestors had actively used, camped at and travelled through the area for time immemorial, they founded what was to become the permanent community at Kelly Lake around the turn of the 19th century. As KLCN people continue to do today, their ancestors moved seasonally throughout the traditional territory, occupying and using all areas of the territory. The founding of the present-day community of Kelly Lake should be understood as a single point in a long continuum of traditional use and occupancy.