The Ojibway people living on the North Shore of Lake Superior (ancestors of Rocky Bay First Nations people) survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering food. When the fur trade moved its way into the Lake Superior area, the Rocky Bay First Nations started to include hunting and trapping (their economic activities) for the purpose of trading.

The Ojibway hunting ranges had evolved into well-defined trapping territories. The Rocky Bay reserve is within the boundaries of the territory described by the Robinson-Superior Treaty of 1850. A 1963 Ontario Order-in-council transferred 32 acres at MacDiarmid to the federal government to be set apart as a reserve for the Rocky Bay.

Indian people from Gull Bay, Sand Point, Red Rock, McIntyre Bay, and Chapleau had been living there in the early 1950s and were formally constituted as the Rocky Bay Band in 1960. In 1971, a federal Order-in-Council set apart those lands as Rocky Bay I.R. No.1 for the exclusive use and benefit of the Band.