The land occupied by Foleyet was originally an island, before an esker was destroyed and the lake receded dramatically. Ivanhoe Lake (then known as Pishkanogami, the Anishinaabe name for it) was how the area was first explored, before Foleyet became a town. The Hudson's Bay Company had two outposts nearby, one on Lake Pishkanogami, and one on Kukatush (Groundhog) Lake. Both were closed in the 1880s due to a decline in the fur trade. It was only in 1960 that Lake Pishkanogami became Ivanhoe Lake or "lac Ivanhoe" in French.