 The population of the entire band at all three locations at this time was 78 individuals, but this number grew with an influx of newcomers from Island Lake in Manitoba and numbered over 300 in 1929.It was that year that commissioners representing the Government of Ontario (the province of Ontario had absorbed the area from the District of Keewatin in 1912), determined that the Sandy Lake settlement was actually in the territories covered in the adhesions to the James Bay Treaty (Treaty 9), and created a reserve for the Deer Lake Band at Sandy Lake Narrows ignoring the fact that a significant portion of the band still resided at Deer Lake and had yet to have a reserve formally designated under the terms of the 1910 treaty.As the 20th century progressed the people of Deer Lake came more and more into contact with the outside.