The Bay Area Restoration Council acknowledges that the watershed of Hamilton Harbour is the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.

The watershed is land covered both by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes, and by the Between the Lakes Purchase of 1792 between the Crown and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.