To slow down the competitive activities exerted by the English group of the Hudson Bay Company, the French authorities institutionalized the Saguenay territory under Domaine du Roy. According to the report by land surveyor Normandin, this vast area contained all the land included between the North Shore of the Saint-Lawrence River, from Sept-Iles to Malbaie. The Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean drainage basin was the farthest boundary of this geographic semicircle.

The colonial government rented this estate to Quebec businessmen for a period of three years by way of auction. They traded furs supplied by the Montagnais. Other trading posts were established along the water courses used by the Montagnais hunters: the Chicoutimi River and the Métabetchouane River in 1676, Lake Mistassini in 1679 and the Ashuapmushuan River in 1683.

After the British conquest in 1760, the new colonial administration continued to rent these trading posts to private entrepreneurs. The Hudson Bay Company opened a trading post in Chicoutimi that was used until around 1880.

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