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The Squamish people's history, culture, societal customs, and other knowledge was transmitted by oral tradition from generation to generation without a writing system. Today oral tradition continues to be a fundamental aspect of their traditional culture. This continued until European contact and diseases in 1791, which caused drastic changes to the people and culture.

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The Plateau People - Food / Hunting / Tools

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The Métis ( meh-TEE(SS) , French: , Canadian French: ,[citation needed ] ) are an Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, parts of Ontario, and the northern United States. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European (primarily French, Scottish, and English) and Indigenous ancestry, which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.

In Canada, the Métis, with a population of 624,220 as of 2021, are one of three legally-recognized Indigenous peoples in the Constitution Act of 1982, along with the First Nations and Inuit.

The term Métis (uppercase 'M') typically refers to the specific community of people defined as the Métis Nation, which originated largely in the Red River Valley and organized politically in the 19th century, radiating outwards from the Red River Settlement (now Winnipeg). Descendants of this community are known as the Red River Métis. In 1870, the Métis Provisional Government of Louis Riel negotiated the entry of the Red River Settlement into Confederation as the Province of Manitoba, making Manitoba the only province to be founded by an Indigenous person.

The Métis National Council (MNC) is the political organization that represents the Métis Nation at the national and international levels. In 2002, the MNC defined Métis as: "a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal Peoples, is of historic Métis Nation ancestry and who is accepted by the Métis Nation."

Smaller communities who self-identify as Métis exist in Canada and the United States, such as the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana. The United States recognizes the Little Shell Tribe as an Ojibwe Native American tribe.

Alberta is the only Canadian province with a recognized Métis land base: the eight Métis settlements, with a population of approximately 5,000 people on 1.25 million acres (5,100 km ²) and the newer Metis lands near Fort McKay, purchased from the Government of Alberta in 2017.

The definitions and usage of the terms "Métis", "Metis", and "métis" (lowercase) have at times been controversial and contentious; however, there are also legal definitions.

Lowercase 'm'

Starting in the 17th century, the French word métis was initially used as a noun by those in the North American fur trade, and by settlers in general, to refer to people of mixed European and North-American Indigenous parentage in New France (which at that time extended from the Maritime provinces through southern Quebec and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, thence southward to Mississippi and Alabama). At the time, it applied generally to French-speaking people who were of partial Indigenous and partial ethnic French descent. It also came to be used for people of mixed European and Indigenous backgrounds in other French colonies, generally the children of unions between Frenchmen and women from the colonized areas, including Guadeloupe in the Caribbean; Senegal in West Africa; Algeria in North Africa; and the former French Indochina in Southeast Asia.

The first documented "métis" child was a girl born about 1628 near Lake Nipissing, given the first name Marguerite, who was the daughter of a Nipissing Indian woman and Jean Nicollet de Belleborne (born about 1598, likely in Cherbourg, France).

Today, the spelling métis with a lowercase 'm' typically functions as an adjective. The definition of the word has at times been disputed, as some people have attempted to use lower-case métis in the archaic sense of having a single, distant Indigenous ancestor or being in some other way "mixed".

Uppercase 'M'

As French Canadians followed the North American fur trade to the west, some of the settlers made unions with different Indigenous women, including the Cree. Over time, the Métis (uppercase 'M') emerged as a distinct Indigenous people during the late 18th century, with the term referring to a particular sociocultural heritage and an ethnic identification.

In this regard, the term Métis is more than a racial classification and refers to the Métis Nation, an Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States who originated largely in the Red River Valley and organized politically in the 19th century, developing and dispersing outwards from the Red River Settlement (now Winnipeg). Descendants of this community are therefore also often known as the Red River Métis.

Numerous spellings of Métis have been used interchangeably, including métif, michif; currently the most agreed-upon spelling is Métis; however, some prefer to use Metis as inclusive of persons of both English and French descent.

The majority of Indigenous groups and legal scholars define Métis as the people who originate from the historic homeland of the Métis Nation, which encompasses the Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta and extends into contiguous parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the northern United States.

The Métis National Council, in 2002, defined Métis as: "a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal Peoples, is of historic Métis Nation ancestry and who is accepted by the Métis Nation."

Canadian Geographic's Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada identifies Métis people as one of three Canadian Indigenous peoples in the following terms:

Within non-Indigenous society, there are two competing ideas of what being Métis means. The first, when spelled with a lowercase "m" (métis), means individuals or people having mixed-race parents and ancestries, e.g., North American Indigenous and European/Euro-Canadian/Euro-American. It is a racial categorization. This is the oldest meaning of métis and is based on the French verb métisser [sic], to mix races or ethnicities. The related noun for the act of race-mixing is métissage. The second meaning of being Métis, and the one that is embraced by the Métis Nation, relates to a self-defining people with a distinct history in a specific region (Western Canada's prairies) with some spillover into British Columbia, Ontario, North Dakota, Montana and Northwest Territories. In this case, the term Métis is spelled with an uppercase "M" and often, but does not always, contain an accent aigu (é).

The Métis of Canada and the Métis of the United States adopted parts of their Indigenous and European cultures while forming customs and traditions of their own, as well as developing a common language. Some argue that the ethnogenesis of the Métis began when the Métis organized politically at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816, while others argue that the ethnogenesis began prior to this battle, before fur traders emigrated from the Great Lakes region to the Western plains.

Scholars, Métis people, and First Nations elders and community leaders concur that only the descendants of the Red River Métis should be constitutionally recognized as Métis people, as they developed a distinct culture as a people historically, and have continued to exist as a distinct culture and community over many generations.

Objections to this standard have been made to the Métis National Council, by both individuals and newly-formed groups who do not meet the established citizenship criteria. These individuals and unrecognized groups have recently emerged largely in the Maritime, Quebec, and Ontario regions, and are generally referred to as " Eastern Metis". These complainants usually assert that having a single, distant, Indigenous or possibly Indigenous ancestor should be enough to be considered Métis. They also disagree that they should have to meet the resident requirement as defined by the federally recognized Métis organizations.

Since the early 2000s, there has been a meteoric rise in the number of people self-identifying as Métis in Eastern Canada. New census data shows the highest increases in self-reported "Métis" people between 2006 and 2016 were in Québec (149.2 per cent) and in Nova Scotia (124.3 per cent). In Canada during the same period, the increase was less than 60 per cent. Rather than a spike in birth rates, almost all of the increase is due to white Franco-Québécois and Acadian settlers "becoming" Indigenous.

David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, responding in 2020 said he does not believe these new, self-identified individuals and communities are Métis,

They are not part of us, never were. There is no connection historically in any way or fashion that they can use as even an argument to say that they are part of our nation.

In a 2016 decision, Daniels v Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Development), the Supreme Court of Canada stated in par. 17:

There is no consensus on who is considered Métis or a non-status Indian, nor need there be. Cultural and ethnic labels do not lend themselves to neat boundaries. 'Métis' can refer to the historic Métis community in Manitoba's Red River Settlement or it can be used as a general term for anyone with mixed European and Aboriginal heritage. Some mixed-ancestry communities identify as Métis, others as Indian.

Indigenous elders from the Miꞌkmaq and other First Nations communities in the Eastern part of Canada, along with recognized Métis leaders, do not agree with the settler-colonial perspective. They say that there is no distinct Metis community or culture in the Maritimes or Quebec, and that these newly formed, "Eastern Metis" groups are not legitimate:

People of mixed blood in the region either integrated into Indigenous communities or assimilated with European newcomers, unlike the distinct Metis People of Louis Riel in Western Canada.

"When you're looking at the Maritimes and Quebec, the children of intermarriage were accepted by either party, in our case the Mi'kmaq or the Acadian," Mi'kmaw elder and historian Daniel Paul says. "There was no such thing as a Metis community here in this region."

Quoting Louis Riel from Tremaudan's Histoire de la nation métisse dans l'ouest canadien:

The Métis have as paternal ancestors the former employees of the Hudson's Bay and North-West Companies, and as maternal ancestors Indian women belonging to various tribes.

The French word Métis is derived from the Latin participle mixtus, which means "mixed"; it expresses well the idea it represents.

Quite appropriate also, was the corresponding English term "Half-Breed" in the first generation of blood mixing, but now that European blood and Indian blood are mingled to varying degrees, it is no longer generally applicable.

The French word Métis expresses the idea of this mixture in as satisfactory a way as possible, and becomes by that fact, a proper race name suitable for our race.

A little observation in passing without offending anyone.

Very polite and amiable people, may sometimes say to a Métis, "You don't look at all like a Métis. You surely can't have much Indian blood. Why, you could pass anywhere for pure White."

The Métis, a trifle disconcerted by the tone of these remarks, would like to lay claim to both sides of his origin. But fear of upsetting or totally dispelling these kind assumptions holds him back. While he is hesitating to choose among the different replies that come to mind, words like these succeed in silencing him completely. "Ah! bah! You have scarcely any Indian blood. You haven't enough worth mentioning." Here is how the Métis think privately.

"It is true that our Indian origin is humble, but it is indeed just that we honour our mothers as well as our fathers. Why should we be so preoccupied with what degree of mingling we have of European and Indian blood? No matter how little we have of one or the other, do not both gratitude and filial love require us to make a point of saying, 'We are Métis."

Métis people in Canada

Contemporary lithograph of the Battle of Batoche

Métis people in Canada are specific cultural communities who trace their descent to First Nations and European settlers, primarily the French, in the early decades of the colonization of Canada. Métis peoples are recognized as one of Canada's Indigenous peoples under the Constitution Act of 1982, along with First Nations and Inuit. On April 8, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada Daniels v Canada appeal held that "Métis and non status Indians are 'Indians' under s. 91(24)," but excluded the Powley test as the only criterion to determine Metis identity.

Canadian Métis represent the majority of people who identify as Métis, although there are a number of Métis in the United States. In Canada, the population is 587,545 with 20.5 percent living in Ontario and 19.5 percent in Alberta. The Acadians of eastern Canada, some of whom have mixed French and Indigenous origins, are not Métis according to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and other historic Indigenous communities. This viewpoint sees Métis as historically the children of French fur traders and Nehiyaw women of western and west central Canada.

While the Métis initially developed as the mixed-race descendants of early unions between First Nations and colonial-era European settlers (usually Indigenous women and male French settlers), within generations (particularly in central and western Canada), a distinct Métis culture developed. The women in the unions in eastern Canada were usually Algonquin and Ojibwe, and in western Canada they were Saulteaux, Cree, Ojibwe, Nakoda, and Dakota/ Lakota or of mixed descent from these peoples. Their unions with European men engaged in the fur trade in the Old Northwest were often of the type known as marriage à la façon du pays ("according to the custom of the country").

After New France was ceded to Great Britain's control in 1763, there was an important distinction between French Métis born of francophone fathers and the Anglo-Métis (known as "country born" or Mixed Bloods, for instance in the 1870 census of Manitoba) descended from English or Scottish fathers. Today these two cultures have essentially coalesced into location-specific Métis traditions. This does not preclude a range of other Métis cultural expressions across North America. Such polyethnic people were historically referred to by other terms, many of which are now considered to be offensive, such as Mixed-bloods, Half-breeds, Bois-Brûlés, Bungi, Black Scots and Jackatars, the latter term having meaning in a Newfoundland context.

While people of Métis culture or heritage are found across Canada, the traditional Métis " homeland" (areas where Métis populations and culture developed as a distinct ethnicity historically) includes much of the present-day Canadian Prairies along with parts of Northwestern Ontario, British Columbia, and the Northwest-Nunavut Territory. The most well-known group are the "Red River Métis", centering on southern and central parts of Manitoba along the Red River of the North.

Closely related are the Métis in the United States, primarily those in border areas such as Northern Michigan, the Red River Valley and Eastern Montana. These were areas in which there was considerable Aboriginal and European mixing due to the 19th-century fur trade. However, they do not have a federally recognized status in the United States, except as enrolled members of federally recognized tribes. Although Métis existed farther west than today's Manitoba, much less is known about the Métis of Northern Canada.

In 2016, 587,545 people in Canada self-identified as Métis. They represented 35.1% of the total Aboriginal population and 1.5% of the total Canadian population. Most Métis people today are descendants of unions between generations of Métis individuals and live in urban areas. The exception are the Métis in rural and northern parts that exist in close proximity to First Nations communities.

Over the past century, countless Métis have assimilated into the general European Canadian populations. Métis heritage (and thereby Aboriginal ancestry) is more common than is generally realized. People with more distant ancestry, who assimilated into non-Métis society, are not part of the Métis ethnicity or culture.

"What we're seeing is the phenomenon of non-Indigenous people, or those with a very distant ancestry - from the 1600 and 1700s - now claiming that they now have political rights which prevail over those Indigenous nations," said Veldon Coburn, a professor in Indigenous studies at the University of Ottawa and member of the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn.

Unlike among First Nations peoples, laws concerning the Métis make no distinction between Treaty status and non-Treaty status. The Métis did not sign treaties with Canada, with the exception of an adhesion to Treaty 3 in Northwest Ontario. This adherence was never implemented by the federal government. The legal definition is not yet fully developed. Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes the rights of Indian, Métis and Inuit; however, that text does not define these groups. In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada defined a Métis person as someone who self-identifies as Métis, has an ancestral connection to the historic Métis community, and is accepted by the modern community with continuity to the historic Métis community.

The most well-known and historically documented mixed-ancestry population in Canadian history are the groups who developed during the fur trade in south-eastern Rupert's Land, primarily in the Red River Settlement (now Manitoba) and the Southbranch Settlements (Saskatchewan). In the late 19th century, they organized politically (led by men who had European educations) and had confrontations with the Canadian government in an effort to assert their independence.

This was not the only place where some degree of intermixing ( métisser) between European and Indigenous people occurred. It was part of the history of colonization from the earliest days of settlements on the Atlantic Coast throughout the Americas. But the strong sense of ethnic national identity among the mostly French- and Michif-speaking Métis along the Red River, demonstrated during armed resistance movements led by Louis Riel, resulted in a specific use of the term "Métis" throughout Canada.

Continued organizing and political activity resulted in "the Métis" gaining official recognition from the national government as one of the recognized Aboriginal groups in S.35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which states:

35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal People of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.

(2) In this Act, "Aboriginal Peoples of Canada" includes the Indian, Inuit, and Métis Peoples of Canada.

Section 35(2) does not define criteria for an individual who is Métis. This has left open the question of whether "Métis" in this context should apply only to the descendants of the Red River Métis or to all mixed-ancestry groups and individuals. Many members of First Nations may have mixed ancestry but identify primarily by the tribal nation, rather than as Métis.

In contrast to the , which creates an Indian Register for all (Status) First Nations people, settler-colonial definitions of Métis, Metis and metis have at times been at odds with the definitions of the communities themselves. Some commentators have argued that one of the rights of an Indigenous people is to define their own identity, precluding the need for a government-sanctioned definition.

Alberta is the only province to have defined the term in law under the Métis Settlements Act (MSA), which defines a Métis as "a person of Aboriginal ancestry who identifies with Métis history and culture". This was done in the context of creating a test for legal eligibility for membership in one of Alberta's eight Métis settlements. The MSA, together with requirements at the community level (Elder & community acceptance) create the legal requirements for residency on the Métis Settlements. In Alberta law, belonging to a "Métis Association" (Métis National Council or any of its affiliates, Métis Federation of Canada, Congress of Aboriginal People) does not grant one the rights granted to members of the Alberta Métis Settlements. The MSA test excludes those people who are Status Indians (that is, a member of a First Nation), an exclusion which was upheld by the Supreme Court in Alberta v. Cunningham (2011).

The number of people self-identifying as Métis has risen sharply since the late 20th century: between 1996 and 2006, the population of Canadians who self-identify as Métis nearly doubled, to approximately 390,000. From 2006 to 2016, according to census results from Statistics Canada, those numbers rose by 125% in Nova Scotia, and 150% in Quebec. Also in that time, "Dozens" of new "Metis" organizations appeared, none of whom could demonstrate any ties to continually-existing Métis communities.

Until (2003), there was no legal definition of Métis other than the legal requirements found in the Métis Settlements Act of 1990. The Powley case involved a claim by Steven Powley and his son Rodney, two members of the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario Métis community who were asserting Métis hunting rights. The Supreme Court of Canada outlined three broad factors to identify Métis who have Hunting Rights as Aboriginal peoples:

self-identification as a Métis individual;

ancestral connection to an historic Métis community; and

acceptance by a Métis community.

All three factors must be present for an individual to qualify under the SCC legal definition of Métis. In addition, the court stated that

[t]he term Métis in s. 35 does not encompass all individuals with mixed Indian and European heritage; rather, it refers to distinctive peoples who, in addition to their mixed ancestry, developed their own customs, ways of life, and recognizable group identity separate from their Indian or Inuit and European forebears. The court was explicit that its ten-point test is not a comprehensive definition of Métis.

Questions remain as to whether Métis have treaty rights; this is an explosive issue in the Canadian Aboriginal community today. It has been stated that "only First Nations could legitimately sign treaties with the government so, by definition, Métis have no Treaty rights." One treaty names Métis in the title: the Halfbreed (Métis in the French version) Adhesion to Treaty 3. Another, the Robinson Superior Treaty of 1850, listed 84 persons classified as "half-breeds" in the Treaty, so included them and their descendants. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Métis were initially included in a number of other treaties, and then excluded under later amendments to the .

Definitions used by Métis representative organizations

Two main advocacy groups claim to speak for the Métis in Canada: the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) and the Métis National Council (MNC). Each uses different approaches to define Métis individuals. The CAP, which has nine regional affiliates, represents all Indigenous peoples in Canada who are living off-reserve, including Métis and non-Status Indians. It does not provide a definition of "Métis", but instead leaves each affiliate determine its own membership criteria.

Due to the exclusion of a Métis representative among the Native Council of Canada's two seats at the Constitutional Conference in 1983, the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF), the Association of Métis and Non-Status Indians of Saskatchewan (AMNSIS) and the Métis Association of Alberta (MAA) withdrew from the NCC (CAP's predecessor) and formed the Métis National Council. Its political leadership of the time stated that the NCC's "pan-Aboriginal approach to issues did not allow the Métis Nation to effectively represent itself". The MNC views the Métis as a single nation with a common history and culture centred on the fur trade of "west-central North America" in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This position has been subject to much debate and controversy.

In 2003, MNC had five provincial affiliates:

The MNA adopted the following "Definition of Métis":

Métis means a person who self-identifies as a Métis, is distinct from other aboriginal peoples, is of historic Métis Nation ancestry, and is accepted by the Métis Nation.

Several local, independent Métis organizations have been founded in Canada. In Northern Canada neither the CAP nor the MNC have affiliates; here local Métis organizations deal directly with the federal government and are part of the Aboriginal land claims process. Three of the comprehensive settlements (modern treaties) in force in the Northwest Territories include benefits for Métis people who can prove local Aboriginal ancestry prior to 1921 ( Treaty 11).

The federal government recognizes the Métis National Council as the representative Métis group. In December 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a commitment to the leaders of the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Métis National Council to have annual meetings. He also committed to two other initiatives aimed at heeding the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which examined abuses at Indian Residential Schools.

Indigenous Affairs Canada, the relevant federal ministry, deals with the MNC. On April 13, 2017, the two parties signed the Canada-Métis Nation Accord, with the goal of working with the Métis Nation, as represented by the Métis National Council, on a Nation to Nation basis.

In response to the Powley decision, Métis organizations are issuing Métis Nation citizenship cards to their members. Several organizations are registered with the Canadian government to provide Métis cards. The criteria to receive a card and the rights associated with the card vary with each organization. For example, for membership in the MNA, an applicant must provide a documented genealogy and family tree dating to the mid-1800s, proving descent from one or more members of historic Métis groups.

Cultural definitions of Métis identity inform legal and political ones.

The 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples stated:

'Métis' means a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal peoples, is of historic Métis Nation Ancestry and who is accepted by the Métis Nation. Many Canadians have mixed Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal ancestry, but that does not make them Métis or even Aboriginal ... What distinguishes Métis people from everyone else is that they associate themselves with a culture that is distinctly Métis.

Traditional markers of Métis culture include use of Aboriginal-European languages, such as Michif (French-Cree-Dene) and Bungi (Cree-Ojibwa-English); distinctive clothing, such as the arrowed sash ( ceinture flêchée); a rich repertoire of fiddle music, jigs and square dances, and practising a traditional economy based on hunting, trapping, and gathering. However, these cultural markers do not exclude Métis that do not partake in them.

The Trapper's Bride by Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837

During the height of the North American fur trade in New France from 1650 onward, many French and British fur traders married First Nations and Inuit women, mainly Cree, Ojibwa or Saulteaux located in the Great Lakes area and later into the north west. The majority of these fur traders were French and Scottish; the French majority were Catholic. These marriages are commonly referred to as marriage à la façon du pays or marriage according to the "custom of the country."

Métis fur trader, c. 1870

At first, the Hudson's Bay Company officially forbade these relationships. However, many Indigenous peoples actively encouraged them, because they drew fur traders into Indigenous kinship circles, creating social ties that supported the economic relationships developing between them and Europeans. When Indigenous women married European men, they introduced them to their people and their culture, taught them about the land and its resources, and worked alongside them. Indigenous women paddled and steered canoes, made moccasins out of moose skin, netted webbing for snowshoes, skinned animals and dried their meat for pemmican, split and dried fish, snared rabbits and partridges, and helped to manufacture birchbark canoes. Intermarriage made the fur trade more successful.

The children of these marriages were often introduced to Catholicism, but grew up in primarily First Nations societies. They were thought of as the familial bond between the Europeans and First Nations and Inuit of North America. As adults, the men often worked as fur-trade company interpreters, as well as fur trappers in their turn. Many of the first generations of Métis lived within the First Nations societies of their wives and children, but also started to marry Métis women.

By the early 19th century, marriage between European fur traders and First Nations or Inuit women started to decline as European fur traders began to marry Métis women instead, because Métis women were familiar with both white and Indigenous cultures, and could interpret.

According to historian Jacob A. Schooley, the Métis developed over at least two generations and within different economic classes. In the first stage, "servant" (employee) traders of the fur trade companies, known as wintering partners, would stay for the season with First Nations bands, and make a "country marriage" with a high-status native woman. This woman and her children would move to live in the vicinity of a trading fort or post, becoming "House Indians" (as they were called by the company men). House Indians eventually formed distinct bands. Children raised within these "House Indian" bands often became employees of the companies. (Foster cites the York boat captain Paulet Paul as an example). Eventually this second-generation group ended employment with the company and became commonly known as "freemen" traders and trappers. They lived with their families raising children in a distinct culture, accustomed to the fur-trade life, that valued free trading and the buffalo hunt in particular. He considered that the third generation, who were sometimes Métis on both sides, were the first true Métis. He suggests that in the Red River region, many "House Indians" (and some non-"House" First Nations) were assimilated into Métis culture due to the Catholic church's strong presence in that region. In the Fort Edmonton region, however, many House Indians never adopted a Métis identity but continued to identify primarily as Cree, Saulteaux, Ojibwa, and Chipweyan descendants up until the early 20th century. The Métis played a vital role in the success of the western fur trade. They were skilled hunters and trappers, and were raised to appreciate both Aboriginal and European cultures. Métis understanding of both societies and customs helped bridge cultural gaps, resulting in better trading relationships. The Hudson's Bay Company discouraged unions between their fur traders and First Nations and Inuit women, while the North West Company (the English-speaking Quebec-based fur trading company) supported such marriages. Trappers often married First Nations women too, and operated outside company structures. The Métis peoples were respected as valuable employees of both fur trade companies, due to their skills as voyageurs, bison hunters, and interpreters, and for their knowledge of the lands.

Rupert's Land, showing location of York Factory

By the early 19th century, European immigrants, mainly Scottish farmers, along with Métis families from the Great Lakes region moved to the Red River Valley in present-day Manitoba. The Hudson's Bay Company, which now administered a monopoly over the territory then called Rupert's Land, assigned plots of land to European settlers. The allocation of Red River land caused conflict with those already living in the area, as well as with the North West Company, whose trade routes had been cut in half. Many Métis were working as fur traders with both the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Others were working as free traders, or buffalo hunters supplying pemmican to the fur trade. The buffalo were declining in number, and the Métis and First Nations had to go farther and further west to hunt them. Profits from the fur trade were declining because of a reduction in European demand due to changing tastes, as well as the need for the Hudson's Bay Company to extend its reach farther from its main posts to get furs.

Most references to the Métis in the 19th century applied to the Plains Métis, but more particularly the Red River Métis. But, the Plains Métis tended to identify by occupational categories: buffalo hunters, pemmican and fur traders, and "tripmen" in the York boat fur brigades among the men; the moccasin sewers and cooks among the women. The largest community in the Assiniboine-Red River district had a different lifestyle and culture from those Métis located in the Saskatchewan, Alberta, Athabasca, and Peace river valleys to the west.

Métis drivers with Red River carts, c. 1860

In 1869, two years after Canadian Confederacy, the Government of Canada exerted its power over the people living in Rupert's Land after it acquired the land in the mid-19th century from the Hudson's Bay Company. The Métis and the Anglo-Métis (commonly known as Countryborn, children of First Nations women and Orcadian, other Scottish or English men), joined forces to stand up for their rights. They wanted to protect their traditional ways of life against an aggressive and distant Anglo-Canadian government and its local colonizing agents. An 1870 census of Manitoba classified the population as follows: 11,963 total people. Of this number 558 were defined as Indians (First Nations). There were 5,757 Métis and 4,083 English-speaking Mixed Bloods. The remaining 1,565 people were of predominately European, Canadian or American background.

During this time the Canadian government signed treaties (known as the " Numbered Treaties") with various First Nations. These Nations ceded property rights to almost the entire western plains to the Government of Canada. In return for their ceding traditional lands, the Canadian government promised food, education, medical help, etc. While the Métis generally did not sign any treaty as a group, they were sometimes included, even listed as "half-breeds" in some records.

In the late 19th century, following the British North America Act (1867), Louis Riel, a Métis who was formally educated, became a leader of the Métis in the Red River area. He denounced the Canadian government surveys on Métis lands in a speech delivered in late August 1869 in front of Saint Boniface Cathedral. The Métis became more fearful when the Canadian government appointed the notoriously anti-French William McDougall as the Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories on September 28, 1869, in anticipation of a formal transfer of lands to take effect in December.} On November 2, 1869, Louis Riel and 120 men seized Upper Fort Garry, the administrative headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. This was the first overt act of Métis resistance. On March 4, 1870, the Provisional Government, led by Louis Riel, executed Thomas Scott after Scott was convicted of insubordination and treason. The elected Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia subsequently sent three delegates to Ottawa to negotiate with the Canadian government. This resulted in the Manitoba Act and that province's entry into the Canadian Confederation. Due to the execution of Scott, Riel was charged with murder and fled to the United States in exile.

Copy of the "Warrant to Apprehend" Riel and Lépine, issued in Winnipeg

In March 1885, the Métis heard that a contingent of 500 North-West Mounted Police was heading west. They organized and formed the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, with Pierre Parenteau as president and Gabriel Dumont as adjutant-general. Riel took charge of a few hundred armed men. They suffered defeat by Canadian armed forces in a conflict known as the North-West Resistance, which occurred in northern Saskatchewan from March 26 to May 12, 1885. Gabriel Dumont fled to the United States, while Riel, Poundmaker, and Big Bear surrendered. Big Bear and Poundmaker each were convicted and received a three-year sentence. On July 6, 1885, Riel was convicted of high treason and was sentenced to hang. Riel appealed but he was executed on November 16, 1885.

A majority of the Métis once spoke, and many still speak, either Métis French or an Indigenous language such as Cree, Anishinaabemowin, Denésoliné, etc. A few in some regions spoke a mixed language called Michif which is composed of Plains Cree verbs and French nouns. Michif, Mechif or Métchif is a phonetic spelling of the Métis pronunciation of Métif, a variant of Métis. The Métis today predominantly speak Canadian English, with Canadian French a strong second language, as well as numerous Aboriginal tongues.

Michif is most used in the United States, notably in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation of North Dakota. There Michif is the official language of the Métis who reside on this Chippewa (Ojibwe) reservation. After years of decline in use of these languages, the provincial Métis councils are encouraging their revival, use in communities and teaching in schools. The encouragement and use of Métis French and Michif is growing due to outreach after at least a generation of decline.

The 19th-century community of Anglo-Métis, more commonly known as Countryborn, were children of people in the Rupert's Land fur trade; they were typically of Orcadian, other Scottish, or English paternal descent and Aboriginal maternal descent. Their first languages would have been Aboriginal ( Cree language, Saulteaux language, Assiniboine language, etc.) and English. The Gaelic and Scots spoken by Orcadians and other Scots became part of the creole language referred to as " Bungee".

The Métis flag is one of the oldest patriotic flags originating in Canada. The Métis have two flags. Both flags use the same design of a central infinity symbol, but are different colours. The first red flag was flown by Cuthbert Grant in 1815 near Fort Espérance alongside the North-West Company (an unsubstantiated rumour reported by James Sutherland claimed that it was a gift from the North-West Company, but no evidence corroborates this). Days before the Battle of Seven Oaks, "La Grenouillère" in 1816, Peter Fidler recorded Cuthbert Grant flying the blue flag. The red and blue are not cultural or linguistic identifiers and do not represent the companies.

In 2019, the final report, Reclaiming Power and Place, by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls stated "The violence the National Inquiry heard amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis, which especially targets women and girls."

Issues of land ownership became a central theme, as the Métis sold most of the 600,000 acres (2430 km ²) they received in the first settlement.

During the 1930s, political activism arose in Métis communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan over land rights, and some filed land claims for the return of certain lands. Five men, sometimes dubbed "The Famous Five", ( James P. Brady, Malcolm Norris, Peter Tomkins Jr., Joe Dion, Felix Callihoo) were instrumental in having the Alberta government form the 1934 "Ewing Commission", headed by Albert Ewing, to deal with land claims The Alberta government passed the Métis Population Betterment Act in 1938. The Act provided funding and land to the Métis. (The provincial government later rescinded portions of the land in certain areas.)

In 1972,the Red River Point Society began leasing land around the community of Fort McKay, Alberta on behalf of the Metis community there. In 2017, the Fort McKay local of the Metis Nation of Alberta purchased some land outright.

According to the 2016 Canada Census, a total of 587,545 individuals self-identified as Métis. However, it is doubtful that all such individuals would meet the objective tests laid out in the Supreme Court decisions Powley and Daniels and therefore qualify as "Métis" for the purposes of Canadian law. Data from this section is from the 2016 Canadian Census by Statistics Canada.

A Métis flag. National symbols in settlements are common, such as the motto "Our People, Our Land, Our Culture, Our Future"

The Métis settlements in Alberta are the only recognized land base of Métis in Canada. They are represented and governed collectively by a unique Métis government known as the Métis Settlements General Council (MSGC), also known as the "All-Council". The MSGC is the provincial, national, and international representative of the Federated Métis Settlements. It holds fee simple land title via Letters Patents to 1.25 million acres (5060 km ²) of land, making the MSGC the largest land holder in the province, other than the Crown in the Right of Alberta. The MSGC is the only recognized Métis Government in Canada with prescribed land, power, and jurisdiction via the Métis Settlements Act. (This legislation followed legal suits filed by the Métis Settlements against the Crown in the 1970s).

The Métis settlements consist of predominantly Indigenous Métis populations native to Northern Alberta - distinct from those of the Red River, the Great Lakes, and other migrant Métis from further east. However, following the Riel and Dumont resistances some Red-River Métis fled westward, where they married into the contemporary Métis settlement populations during the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. Historically referred to as the "Nomadic Half-breeds", the Métis of Northern Alberta have a unique history. Their fight for land is still evident today with the eight contemporary Métis settlements.

Following the formal establishment of the Métis settlements, then called Half-Breed Colonies, in the 1930s by a distinct Métis political organization, the Métis populations in Northern Alberta were the only Métis to secure communal Métis lands. During renewed Indigenous activism during the 1960s into the 1970s, political organizations were formed or revived among the Métis. In Alberta, the Métis settlements united as: The "Alberta Federation of Métis Settlement Associations" in the mid-1970s. Today, the Federation is represented by the Métis Settlements General Council.

During the constitutional talks of 1982, the Métis were recognized as one of the three Aboriginal peoples of Canada, in part by the Federation of Métis Settlements. In 1990, the Alberta government, following years of conferences and negotiations between the Federation of Métis Settlements (FMS) and the Crown in the Right of Alberta, restored land titles to the northern Métis communities through the Métis Settlement Act, replacing the Métis Betterment Act. Originally, the first Métis settlements in Alberta were called colonies and consisted of:

Buffalo Lake (Caslan) or Beaver River

Cold Lake

East Prairie (south of Lesser Slave Lake)

Elizabeth (east of Elk Point)

Fishing Lake (Packechawanis)

Gift Lake (Ma-cha-cho-wi-se) or Utikuma Lake

Goodfish Lake

Kikino

Kings Land

Marlboro

Paddle Prairie (or Keg River)

Peavine (Big Prairie, north of High Prairie)

Touchwood

Wolf Lake (north of Bonnyville)

In the 1960s, the settlements of Marlboro, Touchwood, Cold Lake, and Wolf Lake were dissolved by Order-in-Council by the Alberta Government. The remaining Métis Settlers were forced to move into one of the eight remaining Métis Settlements - leaving the eight contemporary Métis Settlements.

The position of Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians was created in 1985 as a portfolio in the Canadian Cabinet. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is officially responsible only for Status Indians and largely with those living on Indian reserves. The new position was created in order provide a liaison between the federal government and Métis and non-status Aboriginal peoples, urban Aboriginals, and their representatives.

Councillors of the Métis Provisional Government, 1870. Louis Riel sits in the centre.

The Provisional Government of Saskatchewan was the name given by Louis Riel to the independent state he declared during the North-West Rebellion (Resistance) of 1885 in what is today the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The governing council was named the Exovedate, Latin for "of the flock". The council debated issues ranging from military policy to local bylaws and theological issues. It met at Batoche, Saskatchewan, and exercised real authority only over the Southbranch Settlement. The provisional government collapsed that year after the Battle of Batoche.

Métis Nation of Alberta (1928)

In the 1920s, Métis in the Cold Lake area of Alberta were concerned about the federal government's decision to transfer control of natural resources to the province and its impact on Métis living on Crown land. The "Métis Famous Five" thereby founded the Association des Métis Alberta et les Territoires du Nord-Ouest in 1928 as the first stable Métis organization in Alberta that could advocate to the provincial government there.

In 1932, the Association was organized more formally and became the Métis Association of Alberta (MAA), including 31 locals across Alberta.

Joe Dion, Malcolm Norris, and Adrian Hope, as well as other Métis leaders, successfully lobbied the provincial government, In 1934, the Ewing Commission was formed to investigate Métis issues, which in turn resulted in the Métis Population Betterment Act and the creation of the Metis Settlements.

The MAA would later be renamed as the Métis Nation of Alberta (MNA).

In February 2020, the Alberta Métis Federation was founded to represent six local Métis communities in Alberta that had separated from the MNA.

Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (1971)

The Native Council of Canada was founded in 1971 as a pan-Indigenous umbrella group that included member organizations that represented all off-reserve First Nations as well as the Métis. In 1983, many of its Western Metis members split off to form the Métis National Council. The Native Council of Canada continues today as the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) and its nine regional affiliates represent all Aboriginal people who are not part of the reserve system, including Métis and non-Status Indians.[citation needed ]

Metis National Council (1983)

The Métis National Council was formed in 1983, following the recognition of the Métis as "aboriginal peoples of Canada," in Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, 1982. The MNC was a member of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP).[citation needed ]

In 1997 the Métis National Council was granted NGO Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The MNC's first ambassador to this group was Clément Chartier. MNC is a founding member of the American Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP).

The Métis National Council is currently composed of four provincial Métis organizations, though numbers have varied over time. namely,

The National Council holds province-wide ballot box elections for political positions in these associations, held at regular intervals, for regional and provincial leadership. Métis citizens and their communities are represented and participate in these Métis governance structures by way of elected Locals or Community Councils, as well as provincial assemblies held annually.

There used to be five groups, but in September 2021, the Manitoba Metis Federation left over membership issues involving the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO), with President David Chartrand citing issues of the Council accepting the MNO despite the MNO having "nearly 80 per cent non-Métis Nation Citizens in their registry." The Métis National Council has stated that they reject the idea of new Ontario Métis communities, and in 2020 they suspended the membership of the MNO due to concerns that 90% of the MNOs registered members did not fulfill the requirements of citizenship put in place by the National Council in 2002, notably the requirement for an ancestral link to the Métis homelands and the Red River area specifically.

On March 22, 2022, in response to Chartrand's comments on MNO suspension, President Margaret Froh stated her position that, "The MNO was never suspended, the MNO was on probation and there was a decision by just a few individuals declaring that the MNO was suspended when in fact that wasn't correct and in fact we (MNO) went to court and the court concluded we were not suspended. The Ontario group had granted memberships to people from four disputed communities: Mattawa, Georgian Bay, Killarney, and Temiskaming, claiming these groups consist of Métis people, and not simply regions inhabited by First Nations individuals and some settlers, but without cultural ties to the recognized Métis communities. When the suspension was announced, a motion was passed to create a panel of experts, including representatives from the four Métis Nation governments (including MNO), to "gather information and present findings and recommendations" on how to proceed.

In a Supreme Court of Canada appeal (Document C28533, page 17), the federal government states that "membership in OMAA and/or MNO does not establish membership in the specific local aboriginal community for the purposes of establishing a s. 35 [Indigenous and treaty] right. Neither OMAA nor the MNO constitute the sort of discrete, historic and site-specific community contemplated by Van der Peet capable of holding a constitutionally protected aboriginal right". (See: Other groups and individuals)

Métis people in the United States

Paul Kane's oil painting Half-Breeds Running Buffalo, depicting a Métis buffalo hunt on the prairies of Dakota in June 1846

Métis people in the United States are a specific culture and community, who descend from unions between Native American and early European colonist parents - usually Indigenous women who married French, and later Scottish or English, men, who worked as fur trappers and traders during the 17th to 19th centuries in the fur trade era. The women were usually Algonquian, Ojibwe and Cree. They developed as an ethnic and cultural group from the descendants of these unions.

In the French colonies, people of mixed Indigenous and French ancestry were referred to by those who spoke French as métis, meaning "mixture." Being bilingual, these people were able to trade European goods, such as muskets, for the furs and hides at a trading post. These Métis were found throughout the Great Lakes area and to the west, in the Rocky Mountains. While the word in this usage originally had no ethnic designation (and was not capitalized in English), it grew to describe a specific ethnicity by the early 19th century. This use (of simply meaning "mixed") excludes mixed-race people born of unions in other settings or more recently than about 1870.

Fewer Métis live in the U.S. than in Canada. During the early colonial era, people moved easily back and forth through Canada and the British colonies.

With exploration, settlement, and exploitation of resources by French and British fur trading interests across North America, European men often had relationships and sometimes marriages with Native American women. Often both sides felt such marriages were beneficial in strengthening the fur trade. Indigenous women often served as interpreters and could introduce their men to their people. Because many Native Americans and First Nations often had matrilineal kinship systems, the mixed-race children were considered born to the mother's clan and usually raised in her culture. Few were educated in European schools.

The métis children who did attempt to integrate into European societies faced many issues with trying to gain citizenship within these early settlements. Their success often related to their European father's status; fur traders, rather than trappers, were more settled men of capital and more likely to acquire education for their mixed-race children.

The métis men in the northern tier typically worked in the fur trade and later hunting and as guides. The métis based in Red River Colony eventually settled throughout the Canadian Prairies as a distinct ethnic group with its own culture known as the Métis.

Between 1795 and 1815, a network of Métis settlements and trading posts was established throughout what is now the US states of Michigan and to a lesser extent in Illinois and Indiana.

A Metis family poses with their Red River carts in a field in western North Dakota. (1883) State Historical Society of North Dakota (A4365)

After the War of 1812, the US prohibited British (including Scots) traders from Canada participating in the fur trade south of the border, disrupting longstanding practices. During the early days of territorial Michigan, Métis and ethnic French played a dominant role in elections, as they had been established there long before the United States was formed. It was largely with Métis support that Gabriel Richard was elected as delegate to Congress.

After Michigan was admitted as a state and, under pressure of increased numbers of European-American settlers from eastern states, many Métis migrated westward into the Canadian Prairies, including the Red River Colony and the Southbranch Settlement. By the late 1830s only in the area of Sault Ste. Marie, which had long been a center of fur trading and more cosmopolitan interracial encounter, was there recognition of the Métis as significant members of the community.

Métis often participated in interracial marriages. The French, particularly, viewed these marriages as sensible and realistic. Americans, however, viewed interracial marriages as unsound based on their ideas of racial purity. Although marriage to Native Americans was legal, some parts of American society believed that the spouse of the highest social class lost status by such marriage, as did their children. In frontier areas, these ideas were less important.

The French, however, had encouraged fur traders to participate in interracial marriages with Indians as they were beneficial to the fur trade business and also to spread religion. Generally speaking, these marriages were happy ones, that lasted and brought together differing groups of people and benefitted the fur trade business.

Métis or their descendants also live in Minnesota, Montana and North Dakota,. A number of self-identified Métis live in North Dakota, mostly in Pembina County. Many members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians (a federally recognized Tribe) identify as Métis or Michif rather than as strictly Ojibwe.

Many Métis families are recorded in the U.S. Census for the historic Métis settlement areas along the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, Mackinac Island and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

Métis persons generally have not organized as an ethnic or political group in the United States as they have in Canada, where they had armed confrontations and have gained status rights as a recognized aboriginal group.

The first "Conference on the Métis in North America" was held in Chicago in 1981, after increasing research about this people. This also was a period of increased appreciation for different ethnic groups and reappraisal of the histories of settlement of North America.

Papers at the conference focused on "becoming Métis", and the role of history in formation of this ethnic group, defined in Canada as having Aboriginal status. The Metis peoples and their history continue to be extensively studied, especially by scholars in Canada and the United States.

Riel had a significant influence on the Métis community in Canada, especially in the Manitoba region. However, he also had a distinct relationship with the Métis in the United States who were related to the Canadian base. He had entered the US and was an American citizen when he was captured. He was returned to Canada where he was convicted of treason for earlier actions and executed. Riel attempted to lead those of the Métis community in the United States who were related to the Red River region, and contributed to the defence of Métis rights.

On November 22, 1869, Riel went to Winnipeg to discuss the rights of the Métis community with Governor McDougall. At the end of the settlement, McDougall agreed to guarantee a "List of Rights". It also incorporated four clauses of the Dakota bill of rights. This Bill of rights was the rise of the American influence during the Red River Métis resistance and was an important milestone in Métis justice.

The following years were a time of conflict between the government in charge and the Métis people. Métis leaders, such as Louis Riel, were crossing the border without what the colonial government saw as proper notice. This caused repercussions for Riel, who was wanted by the Ontario government. He was later accused of the Scott Death, a murder case. By 1874, there was a warrant out for his arrest in Winnipeg. Because of the warrant charges in Canada, Riel believed that the United States was a safer territory for him and the Métis people. He went into exile in the US.

Riel struggled with mental health problems and sought proper treatment in the American northeast from 1875 to 1878. Once better, he decided to obtain an American residence and complete the liberation of the Métis people that he first started in 1869. Riel wanted to gain US military support to invade Manitoba to obtain control. The American military rejected his proposition.

He tried to create an international alliance between the Aboriginal and Metis peoples, but was not successful. In the end he worked to improve the living conditions and rights of the Métis people in the United States. Frustrated by his failures, Riel suffered further mental breakdowns and was hospitalized in Quebec.

From 1879, Riel returned to Montana to work on leading the Métis and Native peoples of the region to join forces and work against the provisional government. He did not succeed, but he decided to become an American citizen. He said, "The United States sheltered me, The English didn't care/what they owe they will pay/! I am citizen". He spent the next four years working to improve the conditions of the Montana Métis.

From 1880 to 1884, Riel concentrated his public life on improving the situation of the Montana Metis. In the following years, he tried to gain official United States citizenship. Although he did, it did not protect him from being convicted of treason in Canada for earlier actions and being executed.

Medicine Line (Canada-U.S. border)

The Métis homeland existed before the implementation of the Canada-U.S. border and continues to exist on both sides of this border today. The implementation of the border affected the Métis in a multitude of ways, with border enforcement growing from relaxed to increasingly stronger over time. In the late 18th century, to early 19th century the Métis found that in times of conflict, they could cross the 49th parallel north in either direction and the trouble following them would stop and so the border was known as the Medicine Line. This began to change toward the end of the 19th century when the border became more enforced and the Canadian government saw an opportunity to put an end to the line hopping by using military force. This effectively split some of the Métis population and restricted the mobility of the People. The enforcement of the border was used as a means for governments on either side of the Medicine Line in the grand prairies to control the Métis population and to restrict their access to buffalo. Because of the importance of kinship and mobility for Métis communities, this had negative implications and resulted in different experiences and hardships for people in the now divided group.

Métis experience in the U.S. is largely coloured by unratified treaties and the lack of federal representation of Métis communities as a legitimate people, and this can be seen in the case of the Little Shell Tribe in Montana. While experiences in Canada are also affected by the misrecognition of the Métis, many Métis were dispossessed of their lands when they were sold to settlers and some communities set up road allowance villages. These small villages were squatters' villages along Crown land outside established villages in the prairies of Canada. These villages were often burned by local authorities and had to be rebuilt by surviving members of the communities who lived in them.

1. ^ Kermoal, N.; Andersen, C. (2021). Daniels v. Canada: In and Beyond the Courts. University of Manitoba Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-88755-931-0. Its historic homeland includes large parts of what are now known as the Prairie provinces, extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States

2. ^ "Métis Homeland". Rupertsland Institute. Métis villages sprang up along the riverways from the Great Lakes to the Mackenzie Delta. The Rupert's Land territory included all or parts of present-day Northwest-Nunavut Territory, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, and became known to the Métis as the "Métis Homeland."

3. ^ Andersen, C. (2014). Métis: Race, Recognition, and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood. UBC Press - Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-7748-2723-2. The MNC's narrative traces the geographical boundaries of what it terms the "Métis Homeland" to the historical waterways from northern Ontario to British Columbia and from the Northwest Territories to the northern United States.

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6. "Métis National Council rejects idea of new Ontario Métis communities after 2nd identity forum". Mar 27, 2021. David Chartrand, vice-president of the Métis National Council, says communities outside northwestern Ontario are not connected to the Métis homeland or to the culture of the nation. The Métis National Council (MNC) has released a statement flat out rejecting "new Métis" communities, particularly in Ontario... Chartrand is worried that many of the new people who claim to be Métis in Ontario might have mixed First Nations and European ancestry, but don't necessarily have a connection to Métis culture, history or the Métis homeland. He said the homeland of the Métis extends to parts of northwestern Ontario, including the regions around Kenora and Fort Frances, but questioned the validity of communities in other parts of Ontario.

7. E. Foster, "The Métis: The People and the Term" (1978) 3 Prairie Forum 79, at 86-87.107

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11. Cecco, Leland (24 Oct 2021). "'We know who we are': Inuit row raises questions over identity and ancestry". The Guardian. Also at issue is the growing number of people identifying as Métis, and trace their ancestry to both Indigenous people and European settlers in the Prairie region. Some such groups have faced allegations they are appropriating Indigenous identity. Critics of the NunatuKavut point out that in 2010, it changed its name from the Labrador Métis Council. NunatuKavut, which has been an organization since the 1980s, says the term Métis was used for a lineage of both Indigenous and settler ancestry - but that Inuit now better reflects their membership. Others remain skeptical. "What we're seeing is the phenomenon of non-Indigenous people, or those with a very distant ancestry - from the 1600 and 1700s - now claiming that they now have political rights which prevail over those Indigenous nations," said Veldon Coburn, a professor in Indigenous studies at the University of Ottawa and member of the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn.

12. ^ Gaudry, Adam (June 21, 2016). "Métis Are a People, Not a Historical Process". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. This means that beyond self-identification and ancestry, being claimed by the Métis Nation is integral to being Métis, as it is with any other Indigenous people.

13. ^ Lambrecht, Kirk N. (2013). Aboriginal Consultation, Environmental Assessment, and Regulatory Review in Canada. University of Regina Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-88977-298-4.

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18. ^ Gerhard J. Ens; Joe Sawchuk (27 January 2016). From New Peoples to New Nations: Aspects of Metis History and Identity from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first Centuries. University of Toronto Press. pp. 45-. ISBN 978-1-4426-2150-3.

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Andersen, C. (2014). "More Than the Sum of Our Rebellions: Métis Histories Beyond Batoche". Ethnohistory, 61(4), 619-633. doi:10.1215/00141801-2717795

Andersen, Chris (2014) "Metis": Race, Recognition and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Bakker, Peter (1997). A Language of Our Own : The Genesis of Michif, the Mixed Cree-French Language of the Canadian Métis. Oxford studies in anthrological linguistics. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press Inc. ISBN 0-19-509712-2. Paperback. Book preview link provided.

Barkwell, L. (n.d.). Metis Political Organizations.

Barkwell, Lawrence (2013) [2002). Métis Rights and Land Claims in Canada, An Annotated Bibliography.] Accessed September 1, 2019.

Barkwell, Lawrence J. (2010). The Battle of Seven Oaks: a Métis perspective. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Louis Riel Institute. ISBN 978-0-9809912-9-1.

Barkwell, Lawrence J. (2010). Women of the Métis Nation, Winnipeg: Louis Riel Institute. ISBN 978-0-9809912-5-3.

Barkwell, Lawrence J. (2011). Veterans and Families of the 1885 Northwest Resistance. Saskatoon: Gabriel Dumont Institute. ISBN 978-1-926795-03-4

Barnholden, Michael. (2009). Circumstances Alter Photographs: Captain James Peters' Reports from the War of 1885. Vancouver, BC: Talonbooks. ISBN 978-0-88922-621-0.

Bell, Gloria Jane (2013). "Oscillating Identities". In Adams, Christopher; Dahl, Gregg; Peach, Ian (eds.). Métis in Canada: history, identity, law and politics. The University of Alberta Press. ISBN 978-0-88864-722-1. Most curators and scholars argue that the development of the Métis nation occurred at the Red River Settlement and that Métis families dispersed from there to other regions.

Chartrand, Paul LAH (2002). "The Hard Case of Defining "The Métis People" and their Rights: A Comment on R. v. Powley". Constitutional Forum Constitutionnel. 12 (3). Centre for Constitutional Studies: 84-93. CanLIIDocs 376.

Chartrand, Paul L.A.H.; Giokas, John (2002). "Defining 'the Métis People': The Hard Case of Canadian Aboriginal Law". In Chartrand, Paul L. A. H. (ed.). Who Are Canada's Aboriginal Peoples?: Recognition, Definition, and Jurisdiction. Saskatoon: Purich. pp. 268-294?.

Dumont, Gabriel. Gabriel Dumont Speaks. Talonbooks, 2009. ISBN 978-0-88922-625-8.

Flanagan, T. (1990). "The History of Metis Aboriginal Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy". Canadian Journal of Law and Society. 5: 71-94. doi:10.1017/S0829320100001721. S2CID 142986900.

Foster, Martha Harroun (Summer 2006a). ""Just Following the Buffalo": Origins of a Montana Métis Community". Great Plains Quarterly. 97 (3). Lincoln, NE: Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska: 185-202.

Gaudry, Adam (2013). "The Métis-ization of Canada: The Process of Claiming Louis Riel, Métissage, and the Métis People as Canada's Mythical Origin". Aboriginal Policy Studies. 2 (2): 64-87.

Hogue, Michel (Winter 2002). "Disputing the Medicine Line: The Plains Crees and the Canadian-American Border, 1876- 1885". Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 52 (4): 2-17. JSTOR 4520462.

James Alexander, Simone A. (2001). Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 082626316X.

Jones, Hilary (2013). The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253007056.

Lorcin, Patricia M. E. (2006). Algeria & France, 1800-2000: Identity, Memory, Nostalgia. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815630743.

MacKinnon, D. J. (2018). Metis pioneers: Marie Rose Delorme Smith and Isabella Clark Hardisty Lougheed (First ed.). Edmonton, Alberta: The University of Alberta Press..

Madill, D. (July 1983). Select Annotaded Bibliography on Métis History and Claims (PDF). Treaties and Historical Research Centre, Research Branch, Corporate Policy. Ottawa: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada..

Miller, James Rodger (2017). "From Riel to Métis". Reflections on Native-newcomer Relations: Selected Essays. University of Toronto Press. pp. 37-60.

O'Toole, D. (2017). "Y a-t-il des communautés métisses au Québec? Une perspective juridique" (PDF). Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme. 18: 29-36.

Poitras Pratt, Yvonne (August 25, 2019). Digital Storytelling in Indigenous Education. A decolonizing journey for a Métis community (1st ed.). New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. doi:10.4324/9781315265544. ISBN 978-1-315-26554-4. S2CID 199176897.

Rea, J. E.; Scott, J. (2017) [2006]. "Manitoba Act". The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Sawchuck, J. (2001). Negotiating an Identity: Métis Political Organizations, the Canadian Government, and Competing Concepts of Aboriginality. American Indian Quarterly, 25(1), 73-92.

Teillet, Jean (2019). The North-West Is Our Mother: The Story of Louis Riel's People, Patrick Crean Editions. ISBN 978-1443450126

Tremaudan, Auguste-Henri de (1936a). l'Histoire de la nation métisse dans l'ouest canadien (in French). Montreal: Éditions Albert Lévesque. pp. ?.

Tremaudan, Auguste-Henri de (1936b) [1982]. l'Histoire de la nation métisse dans l'ouest canadien [Hold High Your Heads: History of the Metis Nation in Western Canada]. Translated by Maguet, Elizabeth. Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications. p. ?.

Van Kirk, Sylvia (1983). Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870. University of Oklahoma Press. doi:10.2307/3346234. ISBN 978-0-8061-1847-5. JSTOR 3346234.

Vrooman, N. (2019). There are a Range of Identities with Being Little Shell, Just As the Wider America. Distinctly Montana Magazine, pp 68-69 of 98.

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The Métis ( meh-TEE(SS) , French: , Canadian French: ,[citation needed ] ) are an Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, parts of Ontario, and the northern United States.

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Subarctic People

Location

The Subarctic people occupied a majority of Canada from the Yukon to Newfoundland, including parts of seven provinces and two territories.

Population

The density of the Subarctic human population was among the lowest in the world. The entire area probably had as few as 60 000 people. Weather changes were extreme and game animals depended on seasons and were scarce, making life hard for many.

Nations

Gwich'in, Han and Tutchone in the Yukon; the Tagish, Tahltan, Kaska, Sekani and Dene (Yellowknife, Dogrib, Hare, Mountain, Slavey, Chipewyan, Beaver, Sarcee) in the northwest; the Tsetsaut; the Inland Tlingit; the Cree, Ojibwa, Saulteaux, Attikamek and Innu in the East.
Note: Information on the Sarcee, Cree and Saulteaux can be found in the Plains People section. Information on the Tlingit can be found in the Northwest Coastal People section.

Languages

Algonquian was spoken by the Eastern Subarctic groups like the Innu, the Attikamek, the Cree and the Saulteaux.

While their languages were unique, they showed similarities to the Cree language division of Algonquian language.

The Northern Ojibwa speak Ojibwa, another Algonquian language.

The people of the Western Subarctic speak Athapascan. Examples: the Tutchone, Gwich'in (formerly Kutchin), the Han, the Dene, the Tagish, the Tahltan, the Tsetsaut, the Kaska and the Sekani.

Some dialects were highly unique and hard to understand.

There were more than 20 different versions of Northern Athapakan languages spoken.

Map Source - The Canadian Encyclopedia

Notes about the map:
Beothuk was a First Peoples group that went extinct, therefore they are not included in the information.

The Dene

The Dene occupied the northern fringe of the boreal forest and the tundra from the Seal River to Great Slave Lake.

Name

The Dogrib, a Dene people, got their name from a Cree term for Athapascan speakers.

Location

Their lands lay east of the Mackenzie River between Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake in the NWT

Language

Athapascan

Name

Their name was given them by Europeans because of their dependence on the snowshoe hare for food and clothing.

Location

They lived along the Mackenzie River valley of the Northwest Territories.

Language

Athapascan

Name

Their name comes from their location beside the Mackenzie Mountains.

Location

The Mountain Indians lived between the Mackenzie Mountains and the Mackenzie River, from the Redstone River to the Mountain River.

Language

Athapascan

Name

The term Slavey was a Cree word meaning captive or, as a missionary Father Petitot indicated, timidity.

Location

Slavey (Slave) were a major Dene group in the boreal forest region of the western Canadian Subarctic. Their mountainous land extended along the Slave, Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers south from Fort Nelson, BC, on the west and from the Hay Lakes region of Alberta on the east, north to a region near Tulita and the south shore of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories.

Language

Athapascan
They were related linguistically and culturally to the Hare, Gwitch'in, and Dogrib.

Location

The Beaver, lived just south of the Slavey people, along the Peace River.

Language

Athapascan

Name

Chipewyan is a term of Cree meaning "pointed skins," but the group used more specific names in their communities. The Chipewyan have also been called Caribou Eaters and Mountainees.

Location

The Chipewyan lived in the northern portions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the southern part of the NWT.

Language

Athapascan

Peoples

The Yellowknives Indians were absorbed into the Chipewyan Indians.

Tagish

Location

They lived around the Tagish Lask and Marsh Lake in the Yukon.

Language

Athapascan

Tahltan

Language

Athapascan

Kaska

Language

Athapascan

Sekani

Location

They lived in the Finlay and Parsnip River drainages of the Rocky Mountain Trench. They diverged from the Beaver in the late 18th century.

Language

Athapascan

Tsetsaut

Location

They mostly inhabited the area of the Portland Canal. They were a large tribe but were almost exterminated by other tribes (including the Tahltan) around 1830. Since then they have been assimilated into other tribes.

Language

Athapascan - there are no longer any speakers of their Tsetsaut dialect of Athapascan.

Population

In 1830 there were 500 of them; by 1895 there were only 12.

Gwich'in

Location

The Gwich'in (formerly Kutchin), were the northernmost of all North American Indians, and occupied the land located primarily North of the Arctic Circle and extending across the Mackenzie drainage and northern tributaries of the Yukon River into northwest Alaska, bordering Inuit land.

Language

Han

Language

Athapascan
Like many others, their speech was distinct and understood by few.

Tutchones

Language

Athapascan

Northern Ojibwa

Language

Algonquian - Objibway

Attikamek

Location

Their land, in the Bouclier region of Upper St. Maurice Rivière in Québec, was about 7000 km ²

Language

Algonquian

Peoples

The Attikamek or Tête-de-Boule had two major bands, the Kikendatch and the Weymontachie.

Population

There were about 500 to 550 Attikameks back in the 1700s.

The Innu People

Location

The Innu People inhabited eastern Quebec and Labrador.

Language

Algonquian

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The Subarctic People - Groups in this Region

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Subarctic People Location The Subarctic people occupied a majority of Canada from the Yukon to Newfoundland, including parts of seven provinces and two territories. Population The density of the Subarctic human population was among the lowest in the world. The entire area probably had as few as 60 000 people.

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Eastern Woodland Farmers

The people of the Eastern Woodlands are classified into two main groups, the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands farmers) and the Algonquians (Eastern Woodlands hunters). This division is based on the roots of their languages and their main source of food.

Arrival

The Eastern Woodland Farmers came to the area around Lake Ontario over 12,000 years ago.

Map Source - The Canadian Encyclopedia

Location

They inhabited the shores of the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River, and up towards Georgian Bay, in Southwestern and South-Central Ontario

Language

Nations

The Huron, the Neutral, the Petun and the Iroquois

Huron

Name

The Hurons actually had a different name for themelves; the Wyandot or the Wendat. However, when the French arrived in Canada, their foreign ear could not distinguish the name, so they named the nation the Hurons, derived from French word Hure meaning rough or uncultured.

Huron Encampment

Peoples

Deer, Bear, Cord, Rock

Location

Population

(1600s) 30,000

Language

Iroquoian

Neutrals

Name

Samuel de Champlain called them Neutrals, because they were peaceful.

A view of Southern Ontario

Location

Mainly between Hamilton and Brantford.

Population

(1600s) 10,000

Language

Iroquoian

Petun / Tobacco

Name

A Tobacco Plant

Location

Population

(1600s) smallest nation

Language

Iroquoian

Iroquois

Peoples

Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Mohawk

An Iroqois Village

Location

South of Great Lakes. After 1640s, inhabit North Shores of Great Lakes.

Population

(1700s) 12,000

Language

Iroquoian

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Back to Canada's First Peoples Menu

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The Eastern Woodland Farmers - Groups in this Region

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Eastern Woodland Farmers The people of the Eastern Woodlands are classified into two main groups, the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands farmers) and the Algonquians (Eastern Woodlands hunters). This division is based on the roots of their languages and their main source of food. Arrival The Eastern Woodland Farmers came to the area around Lake Ontario over 12,000 years ago.

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Inuit - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Inuit in Canada and Greenland like the name Inuit because it is their own name for themselves. Inuit means more than one, one person is an " Inuk". The native Greenlanders are related to the Inuit. The language of the Inuit is Inuktitut, and it is one of the official languages of Nunavut and of the Northwest Territories in Canada.

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The Mi'kmaq (also Mi'gmaq, Lnu, Miꞌkmaw or Miꞌgmaw; MIG-mah; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as Native Americans in the northeastern region of Maine. The traditional national territory of the Mi'kmaq is named Miꞌkmaꞌki (or Miꞌgmaꞌgi).

There are 66,748 Mi'kmaq people in the region as of 2023, (including 25,182 members in the more recently formed Qalipu First Nation in Newfoundland.) According to the Canadian 2021 census, 9,245 people claim to speak Miꞌkmaq, an Eastern Algonquian language. Once written in Miꞌkmaw hieroglyphic writing, it is now written using most letters of the Latin alphabet.

The Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Pasamaquoddy nations signed a series of treaties known as the Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship Treaties with the British Crown throughout the eighteenth century; the first was signed in 1725, and the last in 1779. The Miꞌkmaq maintain that they did not cede or give up their land title or other rights through these Peace and Friendship Treaties. The landmark 1999 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v Marshall upheld the 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty "which promised Indigenous Peoples the right to hunt and fish their lands and establish trade."

Historically the Santé Mawiómi, or Grand Council, which was made up of chiefs of the district councils of Miꞌkmaꞌki, was the traditional senior level of government for the Miꞌkmaw people. The 1876 Indian Act disrupted that authority, by requiring First Nations to establish representative elected governments along the Canadian model, and attempting to limit the Council's role to spiritual guidance.

Grand Council Santé Mawiómi

On August 30, 2010, the Miꞌkmaw Nation and the Nova Scotia provincial government reached an historic agreement, affirming that the Miꞌkmaw Grand Council was the official consultative authority that engages with the Canadian federal government and the provincial government of Nova Scotia. The Miꞌkmaq-Nova Scotia-Canada Tripartite Forum preceded the agreement. The August 2010 agreement is the first such collaborative agreement in Canadian history; it includes representation for all the First Nations within the entire province of Nova Scotia.

Historically the Santé Mawiómi, or Grand Council, which was made up of chiefs of the district councils of Miꞌkmaꞌki, was the traditional senior level of government for the Miꞌkmaw people. The 1876 Indian Act disrupted that authority, by requiring First Nations to establish representative elected governments and attempting to limit the Council's role to that of spiritual guidance.

In addition to the district councils, the Mꞌikmaq have been traditionally governed by a Grand Council or Santé Mawiómi. The Grand Council was composed of Keptinaq ("captains" in English), who were the district chiefs. There were also elders, the putús ( wampum belt readers and historians, who also dealt with the treaties with the non-natives and other Native tribes), the women's council, and the grand chief. The grand chief was a title given to one of the district chiefs, who was usually from the Miꞌkmaw district of Unamáki or Cape Breton Island. This title was hereditary within a clan and usually passed on to the grand chief's eldest son.

On June 24, 1610, Grand Chief Membertou converted to Catholicism and was baptised. He concluded an alliance with the French Jesuits. The Miꞌkmaq, as trading allies of the French, were amenable to limited French settlement in their midst.

Chief Gabriel Sylliboy - first to fight for Treaty Rights in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1929

In 1927, Grand Chief Sylliboy was charged by Nova Scotia with hunting muskrat pelts out of season. He was the first to use the rights defined in the Treaty of 1752 in his court defence. He lost his case. In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada finally recognized the 1752 treaty rights for indigenous hunting and fishing in their ruling on . On the 50th anniversary of Sylliboy's death, the Grand Council asked the Nova Scotia government for a pardon for the late Grand Chief. Premier Stephen McNeil granted the posthumous pardon in 2017. Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, John James Grant, McNeil, and the Justice Minister Diana Whalen, pardoned Sylliboy and issued a formal apology: it was the "second posthumous pardon in Nova Scotia's history". His grandson, Andrew Denny, now the Grand Keptin of the Council, said that his grandfather had "commanded respect. Young people who were about to get married would go and ask for his blessing. At the Chapel Island Mission boats would stop if he was crossing."

Traditionally, the Grand Council met on a small island, Mniku, on the Bras d'Or lake in Cape Breton. In the early 21st century, this site is now within the reserve known as Chapel Island or Potlotek. The Grand Council continues to meet at Mniku to discuss current issues within the Miꞌkmaq Nation.

Taqamkuk (Newfoundland) was historically defined as part of Unamaꞌkik territory. (Later the large island was organized as a separate district in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.)

The Mi'kmaq language was written using Miꞌkmaq hieroglyphic writing. Today it is written mainly using letters of the Latin alphabet.

At the Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site, petroglyphs of "life-ways of the Mi'kmaw", include written hieroglyphics, human figures, Mi'kmaq houses and lodges, decorations including crosses, sailing vessels, and animals, etched into slate rocks. These are attributed to the Mi'kmaw, who have continuously inhabited the area since prehistoric times. The petroglyphs date from the late prehistoric period through the nineteenth century.

Jerry Lonecloud (1854 - 1930, Mi'kmaq) is considered the "ethnographer of the Micmac nation". In 1912, he transcribed some of the Kejimkujik petroglyphs, and donated his works to the Nova Scotia Museum. He is credited with the first Mi'kmaq memoir, which was recorded from his oral history in the 1920s.

In the late 1670s, French missionary Chrestien Le Clercq, who was working in the Gaspé Peninsula, was inspired by hieroglyphics made by a young Mi'kmaq using charcoal on birchbark. Leclercq adopted the use of Mi'kmaq hieroglyphs to teach Catholic prayers and hymns to the people in their own form of language.

The Holy Mary Rosary prayer in Mi'kmaq hieroglyphics by Christian Kauder, 1866

Christian Kauder was a missionary in from 1856 to 1871. He included samples of Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing, such as the Holy Mary Rosary prayer and the Lord's Prayer, in his German Christian catechism published in 1866.

David L. Schmidt and Murdena Marshall published some of the prayers, narratives, and liturgies represented in hieroglyphs-pictographic symbols in a 1995 book. As noted, the pre-contact Mi'kmaq developed these hieroglyphs. French Jesuit missionaries adopted their use to teach Catholic prayers and religion to the Mi'kmaw. Schmidt and Marshall showed that these hieroglyphics served as a fully functional writing system. They assert it is the oldest writing system for an indigenous language in North America north of Mexico.

Etymology of the word Miꞌkmaq

By the 1980s, the spelling of the ethnonym Miꞌkmaq, which is preferred by the Miꞌkmaw people, was widely adopted by scholarly publications and the media. It replaced the previous spelling Micmac. Although this older spelling is still in use, the Miꞌkmaq consider the spelling "Micmac" to be "tainted" by colonialism. The "q" ending is used in the plural form of the noun, and Miꞌkmaw is used as singular of Miꞌkmaq. It is also used as an adjective, for example, "the Miꞌkmaw nation".

The Miꞌkmaq prefer to use one of the three current Miꞌkmaq orthographies when writing the language. Other spellings used by Mi'kmaq people include Miꞌkmaq (singular Miꞌkmaw) in Prince Edward Island ( Epekw'itk), Nova Scotia ( Mi'kma'ki-Unama'ki) and Newfoundland ( K'taqamkuk); Miigmaq ( Miigmao) in New Brunswick ( Sipekni'katik); Miꞌgmaq by the Listuguj Council in Quebec ( Kespek); and Mìgmaq ( Mìgmaw) in some native literature.

Lnu (the adjectival and singular noun, previously spelled "L'nu"; the plural is Lnúk, Lnuꞌk, Lnuꞌg, or Lnùg) is the term the Miꞌkmaq use for themselves, their autonym, meaning "human being" or "the people". Members of the Miꞌkmaq historically referred to themselves as Lnu, but used the term níkmaq (my kin) as a greeting.

The French initially referred to the Miꞌkmaq as Souriquois and later as Gaspesiens. Adopting a term from the English, they referred to them as Mickmakis. The British originally referred to the people as Tarrantines, which appears to have a French basis.

Various explanations exist for the rise of the term Miꞌkmaq. The Miꞌkmaw Resource Guide says that "Miꞌkmaq" means "the family". The Anishinaabe refer to the Miꞌkmaq as Miijimaa(g), meaning "The Brother(s)/Ally(ies)", with the use of the nX prefix m-, opposed to the use of n1 prefix n- ( i.e. Niijimaa(g), "my brother(s)/comrade(s)") or the n3 prefix w- ( i.e., Wiijimaa(g), "brother(s)/compatriot(s)/comrade(s)").

Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye was documented as the first European to record the term "Micmac" for the people, using it in his 1676 memoir. Marion Robertson stated this in the book Red Earth: Tales of the Mi'kmaq (1960s), published by the Nova Scotia Museum, Robertson cites Professor Ganong, who suggested that "Micmac" was derived from the Mi'kmaq word megamingo (earth). Marc Lescarbot had also suggested this.

The Mi'kmaq may have identified as "the Red Earth People, or the People of the Red Earth". Megumaagee, the name the Mi'kmaq used to describe their land, and Megumawaach, what they called themselves, were linked to the words megwaak, which refers to the colour red, and magumegek, "on the earth". Rand translated megakumegek as "red on the earth", "red ground", or "red earth". Other suggestions from Robertson include its origin in nigumaach, which means "my brother" or "my friend", or a term of endearment. Stansbury Hagar suggested in Micmac Magic and Medicine that the word megumawaach is from megumoowesoo, in reference to magic.

Miꞌkmaꞌki: Divided into seven districts. Not shown is Taqamgug/Tagamuk, the eighth district that includes the entire island of Newfoundland.[34] Taqamgug was historically part of Onamag before the 1800s.

Miꞌkmaw Country, known as Miꞌkmaꞌki, is traditionally divided into seven districts. Prior to the imposition of the Indian Act, each district had its own independent government and boundaries. The independent governments had a district chief and a council. The council members were band chiefs, elders, and other worthy community leaders. The district council was charged with performing all the duties of any independent and free government by enacting laws, justice, apportioning fishing and hunting grounds, making war and suing for peace.

The eight Miꞌkmaw districts (including Ktaqmkuk which is often not counted) are Epekwitk aq Piktuk (Epegwitg aq Pigtug), Eskikewaꞌkik (Esgeꞌgewaꞌgi), Kespek (Gespeꞌgewaꞌgi), Kespukwitk (Gespugwitg), Siknikt (Signigtewaꞌgi), Sipekniꞌkatik (Sugapuneꞌgati), Ktaqmkuk (Gtaqamg), and Unamaꞌkik (Unamaꞌgi). The orthography between parentheses is the Listuguj orthography used in the Gespeꞌgewaꞌgi area.

On September 17, 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the treaty rights of Miꞌkmaw Donald Marshall Jr. its landmark R v Marshall ruling, which "affirmed a treaty right to hunt, fish and gather in pursuit of a 'moderate livelihood'." The Supreme Court also cited Section 35 of the 1982 Constitution Act in their 1999 ruling that resulted in Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Peskotomuhkati people the "right to hunt, fish and gather in pursuit of a 'moderate livelihood' from the resources of the land and waters." The legal precedent had previously been established in the Treaty of 1752, one in a series of treaties known as the Peace and Friendship Treaties, but was not being respected prior to R v Marshall. This resulted in the 1993 charges laid against Marshall Jr. for "fishing eels out of season, fishing without a licence, and fishing with an illegal net". In the 2018 publication, Truth and conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi'kmaw quest for justice, Marshall was quoted as saying, "I don't need a licence. I have the 1752 Treaty." The 1989 Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall, Jr. Prosecution resulted in a compensation to Marshall of a lifetime pension of $1.5 million. Marshall used the financial compensation to finance the lengthy and costly Supreme Court case. When Marshall won, 34 Mi'kmaw and Maliseet First Nations bands were affected in the provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and the Gaspé region of Quebec. The West Nova Fishermen's Coalition submitted an appeal asking for the Marshall decision to be set aside. In November 17, 1999, released a new ruling (Marshall 2) to clarify that the DFO had the power to regulate the fishery for conservation purposes if it "consulted with the First Nation and could justify the regulations".

Soon after the September 17 decision, Miramichi Bay-"one of Canada's most lucrative lobster fisheries"-[citation needed ]became the site of a violent conflict between Mi'kmaw fishers and non-Mi'kmaw commercial fishers. Immediately after the ruling, Mi'kmaw fishers began to lay lobster traps out of season. Incidents such as the Burnt Church Crisis were widely covered by the media from 1999 and 2002. On October 3, 1999, non-Indigenous commercial fishers in 150 boats destroyed hundreds of Mi'kmaw lobster traps, then returned to shore and vandalized fishing equipment, as well as three fish plants. This was captured and documented in the 2002 National Film Board feature-length documentary Is the Crown at war with us? by Alanis Obomsawin. The documentary also described how Ocean and Fisheries department officials seemed to "wage a war" on the Mi'kmaw fishermen of Burnt Church, New Brunswick with "helicopters, patrol boats, guns, with observation by airplanes and dozens of RCMP officers". The documentary asks why the fishers were being harassed for "exercising rights that had been affirmed by the highest court in the land." Following lengthy negotiations with the Mi'kmaq, the DFO developed the $160 million Marshall Response Initiative, which operated until 2007, through which the DFO offered to purchase over 1,000 commercial fishing licences, including boats and gear, to support the expansion of the Mi'kmaw lobster fishery. By mid-2000, about 1,400 commercial fishermen stated their intention to retire over 5,000 licences. On August 20, 2001, the DFO issued a temporary license to Burnt Church Mi'kmaw fishers while negotiations for a more permanent agreement were underway. The DFO license had restrictions that some Burnt Church fishers refused: the fishers could not sell their lobsters, they could only use them for food, social, and ceremonial (FSC) purposes. The "Aboriginal right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes (FSC)" was confirmed in the landmark 1990 R. v. Sparrow Supreme Court case which cited section 35 of the 1982 Constitution Act, 1982. In May 2003, the House of Commons' Standing Committee On Fisheries And Oceans chaired by MP Tom Wappel, submitted its report on fisheries issues, which "recommended that all charges stemming from the [confrontation over the lobster fisheries]" be dropped and that the fishers should be compensated by federal government for "their lost traps and boats." The report said that Mi'kmaw fishers have the "same season as non-native fishermen" and could not therefore, fish in the fall. It recommended that "native bands be issued licences, which they would distribute to native fishermen."

On the tenth anniversary of the benchmark decision, CBC News reported that "Maritime waters" were "calm a decade after Marshall decision."

However, by 2020, the Fish Buyers' Licensing and Enforcement Regulations, under the 1996 N.S. Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act, remains in effect-as it does in other Atlantic provinces. These regulations do not mention the Mi'kmaq or the Marshall decision. These regulations prevent Mi'kmaw lobster fishers from selling their lobster to non-Mi'kmaq. Mi'kmaw fishers say that this does not align with the Marshall decision. In 2019, the government of the Listuguj First Nation in the Bay of Chaleur developed their own self-regulated lobster fisheries management plan and opened their own lobster fishery in the fall of 2020. Under the existing Fish Buyers' Licensing Regulations the self-regulated Listuguj fisheries can harvest, but can only use the lobster for "food, social and ceremonial purposes".

On November 9, 2020, a group of Miꞌkmaq First Nations and Premium Brands Holdings Corporation announced their $1 billion purchase of Clearwater Seafoods, which was finalised on January 25, 2021. The group of First Nations includes Sipekne'katik, We'koqma'q, Potlotek, Pictou Landing, and Paqtnkek First Nations, and is led by Membertou and Miapukek First Nations. The purchase represents the "largest investment in the seafood industry by a Canadian Indigenous group". The harvest of non-Indigenous fishermen in the region will now be purchased by Clearwater Seafoods' Miꞌkmaq part owners.

Starting in September 2020, there has been an ongoing highly-charged conflict in St. Marys Bay, Nova Scotia-the Kespukwitk (also spelled Gespogoitnag) district of Mi'kma'ki-between Miꞌkmaw and non-Miꞌkmaw lobster fishers engaged in the inshore fishery, that is rooted in the Marshall decision, and exacerbated by decades of various levels of government and authorities, mishandling and neglecting local concerns, according to the media. The inshore fishery is the last small-scale fishery in Nova Scotia.[citation needed ] St. Marys Bay is part of Lobster Fishing Area (LFA) 34, making it the "largest lobster fishing area in Canada with more than 900 licensed commercial fishermen harvesting from the southern tip of Nova Scotia up to Digby in the Bay of Fundy." It is also "one of the most lucrative fishing areas in Canada". DFO reported that as of December 2019, there were 979 commercial lobster licenses in LFA 34. In September 2020, following the opening of their own fishery, Sipekne'katik First Nation had issued seven lobster licenses to band members; each license has 50 tags, representing a combined total of 350 tags. One commercial lobster license represents 350 tags.

On September 17, Sipekne'katik launched a "moderate livelihood fishery" with a ceremony at the Saulnierville wharf, the first lobster fishery regulated by Miꞌkmaq in Nova Scotia. On September 18, the Assembly of Nova Scotia Miꞌkmaw Chiefs declared a province-wide state of emergency in response to threats by commercial and non-indigenous fishers, including some that had cut the Miꞌkmaw lobster traps. On September 25, the Sipekne'katik fishery released its proposed regulations allowing the legal sale of seafood harvested under the fishery to Indigenous and non-Indigenous consumers and wholesalers. However, at the time of the announcement, Nova Scotia's Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act prohibited anyone in Nova Scotia from purchasing fish from "a person who does not hold a valid commercial fishing license issued by Fisheries and Oceans Canada," which would include the fishery.

On October 1, Potlotek First Nation and Eskasoni First Nation launched their own moderate livelihood fishery in a celebration at Battery Provincial Park that coincided with Mi'kmaq Treaty Day. The management plan behind this fishery had been in development for three months, prompted by the seizure of lobster traps by DFO officials. Community licenses issued through this fishery will entitle fishers to 70 tags, and boats will be allowed to carry up to 200 lobster traps each. At the time of the launch of the Potlotek fishery, Membertou was also planning on launching their own fishery, following a similar plan. After the launch of this fishery, DFO officers continued to seize Mi'kmaw traps.

Harassment around the Sipekne'katik fishery continued through October. On October 5, Sipekne'katik fisher Robert Syliboy, a holder of one of the moderate livelihood fishery's licenses, found his boat at the Comeauville wharf destroyed in a suspicious fire. On the evening of October 13, several hundred non-Indigenous fishers and their supporters raided two storage facilities in New Edinburgh and Middle West Pubnico that were being used by Miꞌkmaw fishers to store lobsters. During the raids, a van was set aflame, another vehicle was defaced and damaged, lobsters being stored in the facilities were destroyed, and the New Edinburgh facility was damaged, while a Miꞌkmaw fisher was forced to barricade himself inside the facility in Middle West Pubnico. Indigenous leaders called the raids racist hate crimes and called on the RCMP to intervene, citing their slow response on the evening and lack of arrests even a day after the police claimed they "witnessed criminal activity". Social media posts from the commercial fishers and their supporters claimed that the lobsters taken in the raids were removed as they represented "bad fishing practices" on the part of the Miꞌkmaq, but Sipekne'katik Chief Mike Sack and a worker at the Middle West Pubnico facility claimed the lobsters that were stored there were caught by the commercial fishers, not Miꞌkmaw. Assembly of First Nations national chief Perry Bellegarde, federal Fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan, and Colin Sproul, president of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association, all condemned the violence. Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil maintained his position that this issue must be solved federally when asked about it at a press conference. Several months later, in January 2021, the manager of the Middle West Pubnico facility, James Muise, made a public post in a Facebook group for commercial fishers, claiming that he gave the people involved in the raids permission to enter the facility and take the lobsters. Muise offered to work with people charged with offenses connected to the raids and try to get those charges dropped.

On October 15, the Miꞌkmaq Warrior Peacekeepers arrived at the Saulnierville wharf with the intention of providing protection to Miꞌkmaq who were continuing to fish amid the violence.

Three days after the initial raids on the storage facilities, on the evening of October 16, the Middle West Pubnico facility was destroyed in a large fire, deemed "suspicious" by the RCMP. One man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after the fire, but the RCMP did not provide details regarding the man's association to the lobster pound, other than that he was not an employee. The destruction led to further calls from Chief Sack for increased police presence, as well as an appeal from the Maritime Fisherman's Union for the federal government to appoint an independent mediator.

On October 16, Mi'kmaw lobster fishers from the Sipekne'katik First Nation quickly sold all their lobsters after setting up shop in front of the Province House in Halifax with potential customers lined up around the block. The fishers said they were putting pressure on Premier McNeil to act.

On October 21, Sipekne'katik managed to secure an interim injunction against the restriction of band members' access to the Saulnierville and Weymouth wharves, as well as the New Edinburgh lobster pound. The motion for the injunction was filed due to the urgency of the situation, as the band was struggling to sell any of their catch in the midst of the violence and protests. The injunction will remain in place until December 15, 2020.

Intimidation over the fishery dispute has continued into 2021. In mid-January, lobster harvester and Sipekne'katik citizen Jolene Marr, whose brother was surrounded in the West Pubnico lobster pound on October 13, was sent a seven second-long close-up video of a man's face that included what "sounds like a racial slur and six gunshots in the background."

On March 26, 2021, 43 Mi'kmaw lobster fishers from the Sipekne'katik First Nation filed a statement of claim against the attorney general of Canada, the RCMP, the DFO, and 29 non-Indigenous fishers including the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association (BFIFA). The claim alleges that the non-Indigenous fishers named as defendants took the law into their own hands and engaged in violence against the moderate livelihood fishery, that they were encouraged to do so by BFIFA, and that the DFO and RCMP contributed to the harm by not intervening in the foreseeable violence.

Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan sent a letter to Chief Mike Sack on March 3, 2021, outlining the terms under which a moderate livelihood fishery could be negotiated, and what the federal government would be "prepared" to allow; the letter proposed balancing "additional First Nations access through already available licences" and stated that "these fisheries will operate within established seasons." These terms were rejected by Chief Sack, who stated that "we have a management plan that is better for conservation than theirs is, so we're going to follow our own plan."

In 2005, Nova Scotian Miꞌkmaw Nora Bernard led the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history, representing an estimated 79,000 survivors of the Canadian Indian residential school system. The Government of Canada settled the lawsuit for upwards of CA$5 billion.

In autumn 2011, there was an Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission that travelled to various communities in Atlantic Canada, who were all served by the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, the sole residential school for the region. In his 2004 book entitled Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School, journalist Chris Benjamin wrote about the "raw wounds" of Miꞌkmaw children who attended the Shubenacadie institution in the period spanning over three decades, from 1930 to 1967.

The first Miꞌkmaq-operated school in Nova Scotia-the Miꞌkmaq Kinaꞌ matnewey -was established in 1982 he result of a collaboration between the Miꞌkmaw community and the Nova Scotia government. The school is the most successful First Nation Education Program in Canada, according to Benjamin.

By 1997, all Miꞌkmaq on reserves were given the responsibility for their own education. By 2014, there were 11 band-run schools in Nova Scotia, and the province has the highest rate of retention of aboriginal students in schools in Canada. More than half the teachers are Miꞌkmaq. From 2011 to 2012 there was a 25% increase in Miꞌkmaw students going to university. Atlantic Canada has the highest rate of aboriginal students attending university in the country.

Miꞌkmaq Women Selling Baskets, Halifax, Nova Scotia, by Mary R. McKie c. 1845

In southwestern Nova Scotia, there is archaeological evidence that traces traditional land use and resources to at least 4,000 years. In Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site, there are canoe routes that have been used for thousands of years by Indigenous people travelling from the Bay of Fundy to the Atlantic ocean. Research published in 1871 showed that some Mi'kmaq believed they had emigrated from the west, and then lived alongside the Kwēdĕchk. According to Mi'kmaw traditions recorded by S. T. Rand, the Kwēdĕchk were the original inhabitants of the land. The two tribes engaged in a war that lasted "many years", and involved the "slaughter of men, women, and children, and torture of captives", and the eventual displacement of the Kwēdĕchk by the victorious Mi'kmaq.

In his Memorial University Masters thesis, Mi'kmaw elder, Roger Lewis, investigated how pre-contact Mi'kmaq populations had a reciprocal relationship with the environment that was reflected in subsistence fishing, hunting and gathering, as well as in settlement locations. Lewis, who has held the position of ethnology curator at the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax, since 2007 focused his MA research specifically on pre-contact fish weirs in southwestern Nova Scotia.

In the chapter "Late Prehistory of the East Coast" in the Smithsonian's 1978 Handbook of North American Indians, archaeologist Dean Snow says that the fairly deep linguistic split between the Miꞌkmaq and the Eastern Algonquians to the southwest suggests the Miꞌkmaq developed an independent prehistoric cultural sequence in their territory. It emphasized maritime orientation, as the area had relatively few major river systems. In the chapter "Early Indian-European Contact" in the 1978 Handbook, ethnologist T. J. Brasser, described how pre-contact small semi-nomadic bands of a few patrilineally related families indigenous people who lived in a climate unfavorable for agriculture, had subsisted on fishing and hunting. Developed leadership did not extend beyond hunting parties. In the same 1978 Handbook, anthropologist Philip Bock described the annual cycle of seasonal movement of precontact Miꞌkmaq. Bock wrote that the Mi'kmaq had lived in dispersed interior winter camps and larger coastal communities during the summer. The spawning runs of March began their movement to converge on smelt spawning streams. They next harvested spawning herring, gathered waterfowl eggs, and hunted geese. By May, the seashore offered abundant cod and shellfish, and coastal breezes brought relief from the biting black flies, deer flies, midges and mosquitoes of the interior. Autumn frost killed the biting insects during the September harvest of spawning American eels. Smaller groups would disperse into the interior where they hunted moose and caribou. The most important animal hunted by the Miꞌkmaq was the moose, which was used in every part: the meat for food, the skin for clothing, tendons and sinew for cordage, and bones for carving and tools. Other animals hunted/trapped included deer, bear, rabbit, beaver and porcupine.

Braser described the first contact between the Mi'kmaq and early European fishermen. These fishermen salted their catch at sea and sailed directly home with it, but they set up camps ashore as early as 1520 for dry-curing cod. During the second half of the century, dry curing became the preferred preservation method. Brasser said that, trading furs for European trade goods had changed Miꞌkmaw social perspectives. Desire for trade goods encouraged the men devoting a larger portion of the year away from the coast trapping in the interior. Trapping non-migratory animals, such as beaver, increased awareness of territoriality. Trader preferences for good harbors resulted in greater numbers of Miꞌkmaq gathering in fewer summer rendezvous locations. This in turn encouraged their establishing larger bands, led by the ablest trade negotiators.

Miꞌkmaw territory was the first portion of North America that Europeans exploited at length for resource extraction. Reports by John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Portuguese explorers about conditions there encouraged visits by Portuguese, Spanish, Basque, French, and English fishermen and whalers, beginning in the 16th century.

European fishing camps traded with Miꞌkmaw fishermen; and trading rapidly expanded to include furs, according to Thomas B. Costain, (1885-1965), a journalist who wrote historical novels. By 1578, some 350 European ships were operating around the Saint Lawrence estuary. Most were independent fishermen, but increasing numbers were exploring the fur trade.

In the wake of King Philip's War between English colonists and Native Americans in southern New England (which included the first military conflict between the Miꞌkmaq and New England), the Miꞌkmaq became members of the Wapnáki ( Wabanaki Confederacy), an alliance with four other Algonquian-language nations: the Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet. The Wabanaki Confederacy was allied with the Acadian people.

Over a period of seventy-five years, during six wars in Miꞌkmaꞌki, the Miꞌkmaq and Acadians fought to keep the British from taking over the region (See the four French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War). France lost military control of Acadia in 1710 and political claim (apart from Cape Breton) by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht with England.

But the Miꞌkmaq were not included in the treaty, and never conceded any land to the British. In 1715, the Miꞌkmaq were told that the British now claimed their ancient territory by the Treaty of Utrecht. They formally complained to the French commander at Louisbourg about the French king transferring the sovereignty of their nation when he did not possess it. They were informed that the French had claimed legal possession of their country for a century, on account of laws decreed by kings in Europe, that no land could be legally owned by any non-Christian, and that such land was therefore freely available to any Christian prince who claimed it. Miꞌkmaw historian Daniel Paul observes that, "If this warped law were ever to be accorded recognition by modern legalists they would have to take into consideration that, after Grand Chief Membertou and his family converted to Christianity in 1610, the land of the Miꞌkmaq had become exempt from being seized because the people were Christians. However, it's hard to imagine that a modern government would fall back and try to use such uncivilized garbage as justification for non-recognition of aboriginal title."

Along with Acadians, the Miꞌkmaq used military force to resist the founding of British (Protestant) settlements by making numerous raids on Halifax, Dartmouth, Lawrencetown, and Lunenburg. During the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War between France and Britain in Europe, the Miꞌkmaq assisted the Acadians in resisting the British during the Expulsion. The military resistance was reduced significantly with the French defeat at the Siege of Louisbourg (1758) in Cape Breton. In 1763, Great Britain formalized its colonial possession of all of Miꞌkmaki in the Treaty of Paris.

Miꞌkmaw Encampment by Hibbert Newton Binney, c.1791

Between 1725 and 1779, the Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqey (Maliseet), and Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) signed numerous treaties, commonly referred to as the Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship Treaties, through which they entered into a "peaceful relationship with the British Crown." The Mi'kmaq assert that through these treaties-which were referenced as legal precedent by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Marshall -the Mi'kmaq "did not cede or give up their land title and other rights."

The 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty Between His Majesty the King and Jean-Baptiste Cope, on behalf of the Shubenacadie Miꞌkmaq has been cited in the Supreme Court of Canada's 1985 decision in R. v. Simon. In his 2002, book on the Marshall case, historian William Wicken said that there is no written documentation to support this assertion that Cope made the treaty on behalf of all the Miꞌkmaq. has been cited in the Supreme Court of Canada's 1985 decision in R. v. Simon. With the signing of various treaties, the 75 years of regular warfare ended in 1761 with the Halifax Treaties.

Although the treaties of 1760-61 contain statements of Miꞌkmaw submission to the British crown, later statements made by Miꞌkmaw reveal that they intended a friendly and reciprocal relationship, according to the 2009 book, Nova Scotia: a pocket history, by Saint Mary's University history professor, John G. Reid and Brenda Conroy. In the early 1760s, there were approximately 300 Miꞌkmaw fighters in the region and thousands of British soldiers. The goals of the Miꞌkmaw treaty negotiators engaged in the 1760 Halifax treaty negotiations, were to make peace, establish secure and well-regulated trade in commodities such as furs, and begin an ongoing friendship with the British crown. In return, the Mi'kmaq offered friendship and tolerance of limited British settlement, although without any formal land surrender, according to Reid and Connor. To fulfill the reciprocity intended by the Miꞌkmaq, that any additional British settlement of land would have to be negotiated, and accompanied by giving presents to the Miꞌkmaq. The documents summarizing the peace agreements failed to establish specific territorial limits on the expansion of British settlements, but assured the Miꞌkmaq of access to the natural resources that had long sustained them along the regions' coasts and in the woods. Their conceptions of land use were quite different. In his 2003 book about the British expulsion of the Acadians, University of Cincinnati history professor, Geoffrey Plank, described the relationship between the Mi'kmaq and Acadians as strong. The Miꞌkmaq believed they could share their traditional lands with both the British and the Acadians-with the Mi'kmaq hunting as usual, and getting to the coast for seafood.

The arrival of the New England Planters and United Empire Loyalists in greater number put pressure on land use and the treaties. This migration into the region created significant economic, environmental and cultural pressures on the Miꞌkmaq. The Miꞌkmaq tried to enforce the treaties through threat of force. At the beginning of the American Revolution, many Miꞌkmaw and Maliseet tribes supported the Americans against the British. They participated in the Maugerville Rebellion and the Battle of Fort Cumberland in 1776. Miꞌkmaw delegates concluded the first international treaty, the Treaty of Watertown, with the United States soon after it declared its independence in July 1776. These delegates did not officially represent the Miꞌkmaw government, although many individual Miꞌkmaq did privately join the Continental Army as a result. In June 1779, Miꞌkmaq in the Miramichi valley of New Brunswick attacked and plundered some of the British in the area. The following month, British Captain Augustus Harvey, in command of HMS Viper, arrived and battled with the Miꞌkmaq. One Miꞌkmaw was killed and 16 were taken prisoner to Quebec. The prisoners were eventually taken to Halifax. They were released on 28 July 1779 after signing the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown.

As their military power waned in the beginning of the 19th century, the Miꞌkmaw people made explicit appeals to the British to honor the treaties and reminded them of their duty to give "presents" to the Miꞌkmaq in order to occupy Miꞌkmaꞌki. In response, the British offered charity or, the word most often used by government officials, "relief". The British said the Miꞌkmaq must give up their way of life and begin to settle on farms. Also, they were told they had to send their children to British schools for education.

Monument to the Treaty of 1752, Shubenacadie First Nation, Nova Scotia

Gabriel Sylliboy was the first Miꞌkmaw elected as grand chief in 1919 and the first to fight for treaty recognition-specifically, the Treaty of 1752-in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

In 1986, the first Treaty Day was celebrated by Nova Scotians on October 1, 1986 in recognition of the treaties signed between the British Empire and the Miꞌkmaw people.

The treaties were only formally recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada once they were enshrined in Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982. The first Treaty Day occurred the year after the Supreme Court upheld the Peace Treaty of 1752 signed by Jean-Baptiste Cope and Governor Peregrine Hopson.

Bromley's attitudes towards the Indians were singularly enlightened for his day. ... Bromley totally dismissed the idea that native people were naturally inferior and set out to encourage their material improvement through settlement and agriculture, their talents through education, and their pride through his own study of their languages.

Silas Tertius Rand in 1849 help found the Micmac Missionary Society, a full-time Miꞌkmaw mission. Basing his work in Hantsport, Nova Scotia, where he lived from 1853 until his death in 1889, he travelled widely among Miꞌkmaw communities, spreading the Christian faith, learning the language, and recording examples of the Miꞌkmaw oral tradition. Rand produced scriptural translations in Miꞌkmaq and Maliseet, compiled a Miꞌkmaq dictionary and collected numerous legends, and through his published work, was the first to introduce the stories of Glooscap to the wider world. The mission was dissolved in 1870. After a long period of disagreement with the Baptist church, he eventually returned to the church in 1885.

Miꞌkmaq making hockey sticks from hornbeam trees (Ostrya virginiana) in Nova Scotia c. 1890.

The Miꞌkmaq practice of playing ice hockey appeared in recorded colonial histories from as early as the 18th century. Since the nineteenth century, the Miꞌkmaq were credited with inventing the ice hockey stick. The oldest known hockey stick was made between 1852 and 1856. Recently, it was sold for US$2.2 million. The stick was carved by Miꞌkmaq from Nova Scotia, who made it from hornbeam, also known as ironwood.

In 1863, the Starr Manufacturing Company in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began to sell the Mic-Mac hockey sticks nationally and internationally. Hockey became a popular sport in Canada in the 1890s. Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the Mic-Mac hockey stick was the best-selling hockey stick in Canada. By 1903, apart from farming, the principal occupation of the Miꞌkmaq on reserves throughout Nova Scotia, and particularly on the Shubenacadie, Indian Brook, and Millbrook Reserves, was producing the Mic-Mac hockey stick. The department of Indian Affairs for Nova Scotia noted in 1927 that the Miꞌkmaq remained the "experts" at making hockey sticks. The Miꞌkmaq continued to make hockey sticks until the 1930s, when the product was industrialized.

In 1914, over 150 Miꞌkmaw men signed up during World War I. During the First World War, thirty-four out of sixty-four male Miꞌkmaq from Lennox Island First Nation, Prince Edward Island enlisted in the armed forces, distinguishing themselves particularly in the Battle of Amiens. In 1939, over 250 Miꞌkmaq volunteered in World War II. (In 1950, over 60 Miꞌkmaq enlisted to serve in the Korean War.)

Miꞌkmaq of Newfoundland

When Newfoundland joined Canada in confederation in 1949, political leader (later Premier) Joey Smallwood declared that there were "no Indians in Newfoundland." This ultimately led to the Miꞌkmaq people of Newfoundland not receiving indian status or recognition as First Nations that other indigenous groups in Canada did in the years following.

The federal government approved only the petition for recognition made by the Mi'kmaq at Conne River. In 1987, the Miawpukek Mi'kmaq First Nation was recognized under the Indian Act, and their community of Conne River was classified as reserved land for the Mi'kmaq.

In 2011, the Government of Canada announced recognition by an order-in-council to a group in Newfoundland and Labrador called the Qalipu First Nation. The new band, which is landless, had accepted 25,000 applications to become part of the band by October 2012. In total over 100,000 applications were sent in to join the Qalipu, equivalent of one-fifth of the province's population. In response, parliament passed Bill C-25, authorizing it to review all applications and retroactively reject some, based on criteria similar to those used in the R v Powley case that defined rights for the Métis people. Several Miꞌkmaw institutions, including the Grand Council, had argued that the Qalipu Miꞌkmaq Band did not have legitimate aboriginal heritage and was accepting too many members.

In 2017, only 18,044 people were eligible for Band membership. In 2018, the Qalipu First Nation announced that the updated Founding Members List for the Band had been adopted by way of an Order in Council which came into effect on June 25, 2018. The 2018 Band list included 18,575 members. In November 2019, after concerns about legitimacy had been addressed, the Qalipu First Nation was accepted by the Miꞌkmaq Grand Council as being part of the Miꞌkmaq Nation. Qalipu Chief Mitchell stated, "Our inclusion into the AFN, APC and acknowledgement by the Miꞌkmaq Grand Council are important to us; it is part of our reconciliation as Miꞌkmaq people. Friendships are being formed, and relationships are being established. It is a good time for the Qalipu First Nation." By 2021, nearly 24,000 people were recognized as founding members, in 67 Newfoundland communities and abroad.

A dancer in the Miꞌkmaq celebration

Some Miꞌkmaw people practice the Catholic faith while some only practice traditional Miꞌkmaw beliefs. However, many have adopted both because of the compatibility between both systems.

The Miꞌkmaw people had very little in the way of physical recording and storytelling; petroglyphs, while used, are believed to have been rare. In addition, it is not believed that pre-contact Miꞌkmaq had any form of written language. As such, almost all of Miꞌkmaw traditions were passed down orally, primarily via storytelling. There were traditionally three levels of oral traditions: religious myths, legends, and folklore. This includes Miꞌkmaw creation stories and myths which account for the organization of the world and society; for instance, how men and women were created and why they are different from one another. The most well known Miꞌkmaw myth is that of Glooscap. Good storytellers are highly prized by the Miꞌkmaq, as they provide important teachings that shape who a person grows to be, and are sources of great entertainment.

One myth explains that the Miꞌkmaq once believed that evil and wickedness among men is what causes them to kill each other. This causes great sorrow to the creator-sun-god, who weeps tears that become rains sufficient to trigger a deluge. The people attempt to survive the flood by traveling in bark canoes, but only a single old man and woman survive to populate the earth.

Abies balsamea (balsam fir) is traditionally used for a variety of purposes by the Miꞌkmaq. They use the buds, cones and inner bark for diarrhea; the gum for burns, colds, fractures, sores and wounds; the cones for colic; the buds as a laxative; and the bark for gonorrhea. They use the boughs to make beds, the bark to make a beverage, and the wood for kindling and fuel.

Miꞌkmaw names in the following table are spelled according to several orthographies. The Miꞌkmaw orthographies in use are Miꞌkmaw hieroglyphic writing, the orthography of Silas Tertius Rand, the Pacifique orthography, and the most recent Smith-Francis orthography. The latter has been adopted throughout Nova Scotia and in most Miꞌkmaw communities.

The pre-contact population is estimated at 3,000-30,000. In 1616, Father Biard believed the Miꞌkmaw population to be in excess of 3,000, but he remarked that, because of European diseases, there had been large population losses during the 16th century. Smallpox and other endemic European infectious diseases, to which the Miꞌkmaq had no immunity, wars and alcoholism led to a further decline of the native population. It reached its lowest point in the middle of the 17th century. Then the numbers grew slightly again, before becoming apparently stable during the 19th century. During the 20th century, the population was on the rise again. The average growth from 1965 to 1970 was about 2.5%.

The Miꞌkmaw people have been commemorated in numerous ways, including HMCS Micmac (R10), and place names such as Lake Micmac, and the Mic Mac Mall.

Anna Mae Aquash, activist (1946-1976)

J. Kevin Barlow, health campaigner

Nora Bernard, Canadian Indian residential school system activist

Donald Marshall, Jr., wrongly convicted of murder; later, fought for Mi'kmaw fishing rights

Daniel N. Paul, Elder, author, tribal historian, columnist, and human rights activist

Gabriel Sylliboy, Grand Chief of the Miꞌkmaq Nation, 1918 to 1964

Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south):

1. ^ Lockerby, Earle (2004). "Ancient Miꞌkmaq Customs: A Shaman's Revelations" (PDF). The Canadian Journal of Native Studies. 24 (2): 403-423. see page 418, note 2

2. ^ Julien, Donald M. (October 2007). Kekina'muek (learning)Learning about the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia (PDF). Eastern Woodland Print Communication. p. 11.

3. ^ Julien, Donald M. (October 2007). Kekina'muek (learning)Learning about the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia (PDF). Eastern Woodland Print Communication. p. 11.

4. Paul, Daniel N. (2000). We Were Not the Savages: A Miꞌkmaq Perspective on the Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations (2nd ed.). Fernwood. ISBN 978-1-55266-039-3.

5. Wappel, Tom (November 2003). Report Of The Standing Committee On Fisheries And Oceans, May 2003, Atlantic Fisheries Issues (Report). Ottawa, Ontario: Report Of The Standing Committee On Fisheries And Oceans, House Of Commons.

6. The allied tribes occupied the territory which the French named ^ Acadia. The tribes ranged from present-day northern and eastern New England in the United States to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. At the time of contact with the French (late 16th century), they were expanding from their maritime base westward along the Gaspé Peninsula /St. Lawrence River at the expense of Iroquoian-speaking tribes. The Miꞌkmaq name for this peninsula was Kespek (meaning "last-acquired").

7. ^ Patterson, Stephen (2009). "Eighteenth-Century Treaties:The Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy Experience" (PDF). Native Studies Review. 18 (1).

8. ^ Wicken, William C. (2002). Miꞌkmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land and Donald Marshall Junior. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-7665-6.

9. ^ Patterson, Stephen (2009). "Eighteenth-Century Treaties:The Miꞌkmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy Experience" (PDF). Native Studies Review. 18 (1).

10. Among the annual festivals of the old times, now lost, was the celebration of St. Aspinquid's Day; he was known as the Indian Saint. ^ St. Aspinquid appeared in the Nova Scotia almanacks from 1774 to 1786. The festival was celebrated on or immediately after the last quarter of the moon in the month of May, when the tide was low. The townspeople assembled on the shore of the North West Arm and shared a dish of clam soup, the clams being collected on the spot at low water. There is a tradition that in 1786, soon after the American Revolutionary War, when there were threats of American invasion of Canada, agents of the US were trying to recruit supporters in Halifax. As people were celebrating St. Aspinquid with wine, they suddenly hauled down the Union Jack and replaced it with the Stars and Stripes [US flag]. This was soon reversed, but public officials quickly left, and St. Aspinquid was never after celebrated at Halifax. (See Akins. History of Halifax, p. 218, note 94)

11. Cutherbertson, Brian (2005). "The Starr Manufacturing Company: Skate Exporter to the World". Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. 8.

12. ^ Battiste, Jaimie. "Nova Scotia Chiefs Raise Concerns over Qalipu Miꞌkmaq Band" (PDF). mikmaqrights.com. Miꞌkmaq Rights Initiative. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 January 2019.

13. ^ "Statement to United Nations Special Rapporteur Anaya" (PDF). Grand Council of Micmacs. 4 October 2013.

14. ^ Battiste, Jaime. "Defining Aboriginal Identity: What the Courts Have Stated" (PDF). Mikmaqrights.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 January 2019.

15. ^ Canada's First Nations - Native Creation Myths Archived 2014-01-14 at the Wayback Machine, University of Calgary

Davis, Stephen A. (1998). Míkmaq: Peoples of the Maritimes. Nimbus Publishing.

Joe, Rita; Choyce, Lesley (2005). The Míkmaq Anthology. Nimbus Publishing. ISBN 1-895900-04-2.

Johnston, A.J.B.; Francis, Jesse (2013). Niꞌn na L'nu: The Miꞌkmaq of Prince Edward Island. Charlottetown: Acorn Press. ISBN 978-1-894838-93-1.

Magocsi, Paul Robert, ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Prins, Harald E. L. (1996). The Míkmaq: Resistance, Accommodation, and Cultural Survival. Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. Wadsworth.

Speck, Frank (1922). Beothuk and Micmac.

Whitehead, Ruth Holmes (2004). The Old Man Told Us: Excerpts from Míkmaq History 1500-1950. Nimbus Publishing. ISBN 0-921054-83-1.

In chronological order

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The Mi'kmaq (also Mi'gmaq, Lnu, Miꞌkmaw or Miꞌgmaw; MIG-mah ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as Native Americans in the northeastern region of Maine.

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Eastern Woodland Hunters

The people of the Eastern Woodlands are classified into two main groups, the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands farmers) and the Algonquians (Eastern Woodlands hunters). This division is based on the roots of their languages and their main source of food.

Arrival

Ancestors of the Eastern Woodlands people of Canada first arrived in the region 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age.

Map Source - The Canadian Encyclopedia

Location

Southwest Ontario, Southern Ontario (excluding the very south that was occupied by the Eastern Woodland Farmers), Southern Quebec and the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island).

Languages

Central Algonquian and Eastern Algonquian

Nations

Ojibwa, Ottawa, Nipissing, Algonquin (not to be mistaken from Algonquian), Maliseet, Mi'kmaq and Abenaki
Note: the Abenaki are located in the USA, so they are not included in the information.

Ojibwa

Location

Area around Lake Superior to northeast Georgian Bay.

Language

Central Algonquian

Ottawa

Location

Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula

Language

Central Algonquian

Nipissing

Location

Lake Nipissing area

Language

Central Algonquian

Algonquin

Language

Central Algonquian

Maliseet

Location

St. Lawrence Valley to the Bay of Fundy, eastern Maine, and western New Brunswick

Language

Eastern Algonquian

Micmac or Mi'kmaq

Location

Southeast part of the Gaspe Peninsula, eastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia

Language

Eastern Algonquian

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The Eastern Woodland Hunters - Groups in this Region

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Eastern Woodland Hunters The people of the Eastern Woodlands are classified into two main groups, the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands farmers) and the Algonquians (Eastern Woodlands hunters). This division is based on the roots of their languages and their main source of food.

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The Sto:lo , alternately written as Stó:lō, Stó:lô, or Stó:lõ and historically, as Staulo or Stahlo, and historically known and commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish, are a group of First Nations peoples inhabiting the Fraser Valley and lower Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada.

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Traditionally the Tagish were boreal forest hunters and fishers. By about 1800, however, the near extinction of the coastal sea otter owing to the Euroamerican Fur trade led to a demand for fine land animal furs from the interior.

Tagish peoples, also known as the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, were traditionally centered around a series of lakes forming part of the Yukon River headwaters that drain the interior plateau in northern BC and southern Yukon. Their chief 19th-century settlement was Tagish, at the junction of Tagish and Marsh Lakes, but they did not live there year-round because of the requirements of their seminomadic subsistence cycle. The original village site was in Tagish and the location of the town of Carcross was in fact the seasonal hunting grounds for caribou. The White Pass and Yukon railway, extending from Skagway through Carcross to Whitehorse, was completed in 1900. Attracted by the railway, after 1900 most Tagish, descendents of the Tagish and the Inland Tlingit from southeast Alaska, began to live permanently in Carcross, however, some remain at Tagish and others in Whitehorse. The Chilkoot Trail was a trading route of the Tagish and remains as part of Carcross/Tagish First Nation territory.

Early Economy

Traditionally the Tagish were boreal forest hunters and fishers. By about 1800, however, the near extinction of the coastal sea otter owing to the Euroamerican Fur trade led to a demand for fine land animal furs from the interior. The Tagish increased their own trapping activities, including trade with the Tlingit between the coast and interior, and also acted as middlemen between Athapaskan Aboriginal people farther inland and Coast Tlingit traders who, until shortly before the Klondike Gold Rush (1898-1899), prevented the Tagish from crossing the mountain passes to trade directly with Europeans. The Klondike gold discovery was made by George Carmack, an explorer who was prospecting in Han country with a party of Tagish with whom he had been living. Today most Tagish are wage earners, although they still garner food from the land.

Most ancestors of the Tagish originally spoke a dialect of Tagish-Tahltan-Kaska, part of the Athapaskan language family, but in the 19th century, fostered by the growing fur trade and subsequent gold rush, the Tagish gradually adopted Tlingit speech as the result of intermarriage with Coast Tlingit and the partial movement into the interior of two coast clans, one belonging to the Wolf (Eagle) and one to the Crow (Raven) moiety. Today most Tagish speak English. Angela Sidney, a well-known Tagish storyteller awarded the Order of Canada 1986, was the last fluent Tagish speaker. She died in 1991, leaving behind several publications, part of a growing body of published Yukon Aboriginal texts.

Religion and Cultural Life

In the late 19th century each Tlingit clan segment built a Coast-style house at Tagish, embellished with clan crests. The Tagish also incorporated Tlingit concepts of rank associated with a fixed pool of personal names, believed to be renewed each generation through reincarnation and supported by elaborate memorial potlatches ( see Aboriginal People: Northwest Coast; Potlatch). Tagish and Tlingit cultures are matrilineal. The Carcross/Tagish comprise six clans; two of the six are part of the Wolf and the four descend from the Crow moiety.

The Tagish still sustain a rich repertoire of oral literature, singing and dancing that reflects social etiquette and morals and instructs the young in how to live harmoniously with powerful spirits of the natural world who control the supplies of game and fish.

Although maintaining some of their traditional heritage, 20th-century Tagish have become successful big game guides, pilots, government workers, health professionals, anthropologists or hold other wage earning jobs. Tagish leaders also took the initiative in seeking adequate social services for both status and nonstatus Indians ( see Indian) and in developing the Council for Yukon Indians, which sponsored the Aboriginal Land Claims negotiations leading to a settlement in 1993. They have now joined the Council for Yukon First Nations, formed in 1995 to succeed the CYI. The CYFN mission is to establish a Yukon First Nations government to co-exist with the Territorial and Federal governments.

The Carcross/Tagish First Nation is part of the Tlingit Tribal Council.

See also Aboriginal People: Subarctic and general articles under Aboriginal People.

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Traditionally the Tagish were boreal forest hunters and fishers. By about 1800, however, the near extinction of the coastal sea otter owing to the Euroamerican Fur trade led to a demand for fine land animal furs from the interior.

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Iroquois - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Iroquois (pronounced ), also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are a group of tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the people who spoke Iroquoian came together as different tribes, which were mostly in what is now central and upstate New York, in the 16th century or earlier they came together in an group known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power".

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The Northwest Coastal People - Groups in this Region

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The Northwest Coast can be divided up into several main groups, although some estimates actually put the number of distinct First Peoples groups in British Columbia at 70. The main groups are the Haida, the Tlingit, the Tsimshian, the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), and the Salishan.

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Cree

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The Cree (Nehiyawak in the Cree language) are the most populous and widely distributed Indigenous peoples in Canada. Cree First Nations occupy territory in the Subarctic region from Alberta to Québec, as well as portions of the Plains region in Alberta and Saskatchewan. As of March 2015, the registered population of Cree First Nations was more than 317,000. The National Household Survey recorded more than 95,000 speakers of Cree in 2011.

Etymology: Origin of the Term "Cree"

The name Cree originated with a group of Indigenous peoples near James Bay whose name was recorded by the French as Kiristinon and later contracted to Cri, spelled Cree in English. Most Cree use this name only when speaking or writing in English and have other, more localized names. Nehiyawak is the Cree name for the Cree people, though it is often also used to describe Plains Cree. ( See also Indigenous Peoples: Plains.)

Territory and Population

Cree traditional territory.
(courtesy Victor Temprano/Native-Land.ca)

Cree live in areas from Alberta to Québec in the Subarctic and Plains regions, a geographic distribution larger than that of any other Indigenous group in Canada. Moving from west to east, the main divisions of Cree, based on environment, language and dialect are Plains Cree ( paskwâwiyiniwak or nehiyawak) in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Woods Cree ( sakâwiyiniwak) in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Swampy Cree ( maskêkowiyiniwak) in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, and James Bay/Eastern Cree ( Eeyouch) in Québec; Moose Cree (in Ontario) is considered a sub-group/dialect of Swampy Cree. The suffix -iyiniwak, meaning people, is used to distinguish people of particular sub-groups. For example, the kâ-têpwêwisîpîwiyiniwak are the Calling River People, while the amiskowacîwiyiniwak are the Beaver Hills People.

The Eastern Cree are closely related, in both culture and language, to the Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi) and Atikamekw. Many Cree First Nations in western provinces have blended populations of Ojibwa, Saulteaux, Assiniboine, Denesuline and others. In addition, the Oji-Cree of Manitoba and Ontario are a distinct people of mixed Cree and Ojibwa culture and heritage. Many Métis people also descend from Cree women and French Canadian fur traders and voyageurs. ( See also Fur Trade.)

As of March 2015, the total registered population of more than 130 Cree First Nations was approximately 317,000, of which approximately 170,000 (54 per cent) lived on reserve. Saskatchewan nations had the largest approximate registered population with 115,000, followed by Manitoba with 81,000, Alberta with 78,000, and Ontario and Québec with 25,000 and 18,000 respectively. It is important to note that these numbers include several blended communities with more than just Cree people. As well, they do not reflect Cree who themselves, or through their ancestors, have lost or been denied status through enfranchisement or other historical injustices under the . ( See also Indigenous Suffrage.)

Traditional Life

For thousands of years, the ancestors of the Cree were thinly spread over much of the woodland area that they still occupy. Known as the Ndooheenou ("nation of hunters"), the Cree followed seasonal animal migrations in order to obtain meat for food and animal hides and bones for the making of tools and clothing. They travelled by canoe in summer, and by snowshoes and toboggan in winter, living in cone- or dome-shaped lodges, covered in animal skins ( see Architectural History: Indigenous Peoples). Many Cree still consider hunting an important part of their culture and way of life; the hunting and trapping of moose, caribou, rabbit and other animals is fairly common in Cree communities.

After the arrival of Europeans, participation in the fur trade pushed Swampy Cree west into the Plains. During this time, many Cree remained in the boreal forest and the tundra area to the north, where a stable culture persisted. They continued to rely on hunting moose, caribou, smaller game, geese, ducks and fish, which they preserved by drying over fire. The Cree also traded meat, furs and other goods in exchange for metal tools, twine and European goods. Plains Cree exchanged the canoe for horses, and subsisted primarily through the buffalo hunt.

Society

Cree lived in small bands or hunting groups for most of the year, and gathered into larger groups in the summer for socializing, exchanges and ceremonies. They historically had cultural, trade and social relations with other Algonquian-speaking nations, most directly with the Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi), Algonquin and Ojibwa.

Although the Cree strived to maintain a communal and egalitarian society, some individuals were regarded as more powerful, both in the practical activities of hunting and in the spiritual activities that influenced other persons ( see Shaman). Leaders in group hunts, raids and trading were granted authority in directing such tasks, but otherwise the ideal was to lead by means of exemplary action. Some of the most well-known Cree chiefs and leaders include Mistahimaskwa (Big Bear), Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker) and Piapot - all of whom strove to maintain traditional ways of life in the face of change after the arrival of Europeans.

Culture

The Cree participated in a variety of cultural ceremonies and rituals, including the Sun Dance (also known as the Thirst Dance, and particularly celebrated by the Plains Cree), powwows, vision quests, feasts, pipe ceremonies, sweat lodges and more. Many of such rituals were banned by the until 1951; however, the traditions survive to this day.

One of such ceremonies is the "walking out ceremony" - a ritual in which children are officially welcomed into the community. Cree tradition dictates that children's feet are not to touch the ground outside of a tent until the ceremony takes place. Therefore, the ritual is usually held as soon as a child is able to stand or walk on their own. The morning of the ceremony, the child - dressed in traditional clothing - awaits the arrival of the elders. Once they arrive, the elders send the child outside of the tent. Accompanied by an adult, the children walk around a designated area outside the tent. Usually, they are told to mimic hunting or other traditional roles of adults. Once they have done this, the children re-enter the tent and give the elders gifts. The community gathered inside the tent embraces the children as new members of their society. A feast usually follows.

Art and music are important elements of Cree culture. Well-known for their beadwork, Cree women created beautiful and functional clothing, bags and furniture. Plains Cree peoples also decorated the outsides of their tipis with paint. A well-known modern Cree artist is George Littlechild. Drumming is significant to the Cree as well as to most other Indigenous nations. Drums are sacred, and the music that comes from them is likened to the heartbeat of the nation. Drum music can be heard at festivals and religious ceremonies.

Religion and Spirituality

The Cree worldview describes the interconnectivity between people and nature; health and happiness was achieved by living a life in balance with nature. Religious life was based on relations with animal and other spirits which often revealed themselves in dreams. People tried to show respect for each other by an ideal ethic of non-interference, in which each individual was responsible for his or her actions and the consequences of those actions. Food was always the first priority, and would be shared in times of hardship or in times of plenty when people gathered to celebrate by feasting.

The Cree worldview also incorporates Trickster ( wîsahkêcâhk) mythology. A trickster is a cultural and spiritual figure that exhibits great intellect, but uses it to cause mischief and get into trouble. The Cree believe one can learn important lessons about how to live - and not to live - good lives from the examples set by the tricksters. One common trickster figure in Cree spirituality is Wisakedjak - a demigod and cultural hero that is featured in some versions of the Cree creation story. ( See also Indigenous People: Religion and Spirituality.)

Origin Story

Cree stories tell about the past as well as about their belief system. Every Cree nation has a slightly different version of the creation story, but they often have common elements, such as the presence of the Creator or Great (Kitchi/Kitche) Manitou. The following is a paraphrased version of a creation story as recorded by the explorer and geographer, David Thompson:

At the beginning of time, the Creator made the animals and the people. The Creator told Wisakedjak (a trickster figure) to teach the people how to live good, peaceful lives, and to take care of them. Wisakedjak did not listen to the Creator, and soon, the people were fighting and hurting one another. The Creator was disappointed and threatened Wisakedjak with a life of misery if he did not obey. Still Wisakedjak did not listen, and still the people continued to be violent with one another. The Creator decided to flood the lands, washing out everyone and everything. Only Wisakedjak, Otter, Beaver and Muskrat survived. Stranded on open water, Wisakedjak had an idea - if the animals could help him dive down and collect some of the old earth, he could expand it and start a new land. This was not an easy task; Otter and Beaver tried many times to get to the earth below, but both failed, almost dying in the process. Muskrat was the last to try. He stayed underwater for a long time, but when he resurfaced, he had wet earth in his paw. From this mud is where the earth as we know it today came.

Language

The Cree language belongs to the Algonquian language family, and is in itself a continuum or family of dialects. Depending on the region, some Cree peoples speak a slightly different version of the language than Cree peoples in another area. The closer the speakers' communities are, the more likely they are to understand one another. For example, the Eastern Cree dialect is more closely related to Innu-aimun, the Innu language, and is therefore less intelligible (understandable) to western dialect speakers, such as the Plains Cree ( see Cree Language).

Michif, the language of the Métis, is also considered a dialect of Cree; and Cree heavily influences Oji-Cree, a dialect of Ojibwa.

In 2011, the National Household Survey reported more than 95,000 speakers of Cree, with some 6,000 speakers of Atikamekw (considered a distinct Cree dialect), nearly 12,000 speakers of Innu-aimun, about 10,000 speakers of Oji-Cree and 640 Michif speakers.

Colonial History

Jesuit missionaries first mentioned contact with Cree groups in the area west of James Bay around 1640. Fur trading posts established after 1670 began a period of economically motivated migration, as bands attempted to make the most of the growing fur trade. For many years, European traders depended on Indigenous people for fresh meat. Gradually, an increasing number of Cree remained near the posts, hunting and doing odd jobs and becoming involved in the church, schools and nursing stations. Missionizing began when some fur traders held services; trained Christian missionaries soon followed.

During the late 1700s and the 1800s, Cree who had migrated to the Plains changed with rapid, dramatic success from trappers and hunters of the forest to horse-mounted warriors and bison hunters. Epidemics, the destruction of the bison herds and government policies aimed at forcing First Nations to surrender land through treaties, however, brought the Plains Cree and other "horse-culture" nations to ruin by the 1880s ( see Numbered Treaties). The Canadian government, under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald, actively withheld rations and other resources in order to force starving Plains peoples into signing treaties and relocating to reserves. There, Cree existed by farming, ranching and casual labour, and were subjected to further cultural destruction through decades of trauma endured in the residential school system.

Numbered Treaties made with Cree peoples (Treaties 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9).
(courtesy Victor Temprano/Native-Land.ca)

Though the government made general promises to protect Cree land rights and their traditional way of life, the treaties gave the federal and provincial governments the power to intervene in Cree traditional culture. Government services, health programs and education, including residential schooling, were usually administered through the missionaries and traders until the middle of the 20th century.

Contemporary Life

Government-backed corporate exploitation of natural resources in the 20th and 21st centuries has brought radical changes in many Cree communities. In the 1970s in Québec, the James Bay Cree successfully negotiated the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. The agreement was a response to the James Bay hydroelectric project, which had been undertaken without consultation of the communities it would affect. The project pushed the James Bay Cree to action, and the resulting agreement provided the first step toward self-government. Since then, a series of further agreements between the Cree in Québec, the provincial government and the federal government have followed. The Cree have also been central to United Nations negotiations, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).

James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement.
(courtesy Victor Temprano/Native-Land.ca)

Many registered members of Cree nations no longer live in their reserve communities. Nevertheless, for many nations, especially in the James Bay and Plains regions, the portion of registered members living on reserve is very high. For example, the rate of population living on reserve among James Bay Cree averaged 83 per cent in 2015, reaching 96 per cent in the case of Whapmagoostui.

Sel f-government and economic development are major contemporary goals of the Cree. Cree First Nations across Canada have attempted to negotiate with development corporations and governments. For example, the Lubicon First Nation of Alberta have sued the provincial and federal governments for their share of natural gas revenues and further recognition of treaty rights, while in Manitoba, several Cree nations have reached agreements with the federal and provincial governments, as well as resource companies.

Several Cree leaders have had a national role in furthering the aims of Indigenous peoples in Canada, including Assembly of First Nations chiefs Noel Starblanket, Ovide Mercredi, Matthew Coon Come and Perry Bellegarde, and Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence, who gained national attention for her involvement with the Idle No More movement in 2012 and 2013.

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The Cree (Nehiyawak in the Cree language) are the most populous and widely distributed Indigenous peoples in Canada. Cree First Nations occupy territory in the Subarctic region from Alberta to Québec, as well as portions of the Plains region in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

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Mi'kmaq

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Mi'kmaq (Mi'kmaw, Micmac or L'nu, "the people" in Mi'kmaq) are Indigenous peoples who are among the original inhabitants in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada. Alternative names for the Mi'kmaq appear in some historical sources and include Gaspesians, Souriquois, Acadians and Tarrantines. Contemporary Mi'kmaq communities are located predominantly in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but with a significant presence in Québec, Newfoundland, Maine and the Boston area. As of 2015, there were slightly fewer than 60,000 registered members of Mi'kmaq nations in Canada. In the 2011 National Household Survey, 8,935 people reported knowledge of the Mi'kmaq language.

Traditional Territory

Mi'kmaq traditional territory.
(courtesy Victor Temprano/Native-Land.ca)

Mi'kmaq are among the original inhabitants of the Atlantic region in Canada, and inhabited the coastal areas of Gaspé and the Maritime Provinces east of the Saint John River. This traditional territory is known as Mi'gma'gi (Mi'kma'ki) and is made up of seven districts: Unama'gi (Unama'kik), Esge'gewa'gi (Eskikewa'kik), Sugapune'gati (Sipekni'katik), Epegwitg aq Pigtug (Epekwitk aq Piktuk), Gespugwi'tg (Kespukwitk), Signigtewa'gi (Siknikt) and Gespe'gewa'gi (Kespek). Mi'kmaq people have occupied their traditional territory, Mi'gma'gi, since time immemorial. Mi'kmaq continue to occupy this area as well as settlements in Newfoundland and New England, especially Boston. Oral history and archeological evidence place the Mi'kmaq in Mi'gma'gi for more than 10,000 years. ( See also Indigenous Territory.)

Traditional Life

In the pre-contact world of Mi'gma'gi, oral and archeological history tells of seasonally patterned habitation and resource harvesting - spring and summer spent on the coast, fall and winter inland. The people of Mi'gma'gi relied on the variety of resources available, using everything from shellfish to sea mammals to land mammals small and large for nutrition, clothing, dwellings and tools. They also used the bountiful timber to construct canoes, snowshoes and shelters, usually in combination with animal skins and sinews. The Mi'kmaq relied wholly on their surroundings for survival, and thus developed strong reverence for the environment that sustained them.

Population

As of 2015, the number of people registered with Mi'kmaq First Nations was 58,763. Of that total, 23,997 were members of the Qalipu First Nation of Newfoundland, a landless community officially recognized by the Government of Canada in 2011. Excluding the landless Qalipu, 56 per cent of Mi'kmaq people lived on reserves in 2015. Mi'gma'gi is home to 30 Mi'kmaq nations, 29 of which are located in Canada - the Aroostook Micmac Band of Presque Isle, Maine, has more than 1,200 members. All but two communities (the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation and La Nation Micmac de Gespeg in Fontenelle, Québec) possess reserve lands. Many Mi'kmaq people live off-reserve, either in Mi'gma'gi or elsewhere. More still may not be included by registered population counts, as they are not recognized as status Indians under the.

Social and Political Organization

Historically, Mi'kmaq settlements were characterized by individual or joint households scattered about a bay or along a river. Communities were related by alliance and kinship. Leadership, based on prestige rather than power, was largely concerned with effective management of the fishing and hunting economy.

Mi'kmaq share close ties with other local peoples, including the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy. With the Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Abenaki peoples, the Mi'kmaq make up the Wabanaki Confederacy, a confederation of nations politically active at least from contact with Europeans to the present.

The Mi'kmaq Grand Council ( Sante' Mawio'mi) is the traditional government of the Mi'kmaq peoples, established before the arrival of Europeans. The council survives to this day, although its political powers have been restricted by federal legislation, such as the Indian Act. In the past, the council discussed political issues and entered into treaties with the British in the 1600s and 1700s. The Council was also (and still is) considered the spiritual authority of the Mi'kmaq people. Today, the Mi'kmaq Grand Council members advocate for the promotion and preservation of Mi'kmaq people, language and culture.

Representatives from across Mi'kmaq territory sit on the council. In the past, the Grand Chief ( Kji Sagamaw or Kji Saqmaw) was the head of state for the collected Mi'kmaq political body, which consisted of captains ( keptins or kji'keptan), who led the council, wampum readers ( putu's or putus), who maintained treaty and traditional laws, and soldiers ( smagn'is), who protected the people. Today, the chief, captains and wampum readers still run the council, though their roles have been curtailed by the federal government to focus primarily on Mi'kmaq spirituality and culture. Other organizations, like the Mi'kmaq Rights Initiative ( Kwilmu'kw Maw-klusuaqn), advocate politically for the recognition and implementation of treaty rights. ( See also Indigenous Peoples: Treaties.)

Culture

Like other Indigenous peoples in the Eastern Woodlands region, Mi'kmaq practised art intrinsically linked to the natural world. Contemporary Mi'kmaq artists like Alan Syliboy have reinterpreted Mi'kmaq artistic traditions, like rock painting and ornate quillwork clothing. ( See also Indigenous Art in Canada.)

Music is another important element of Mi'kmaq culture. Many traditional songs and chants are still sung during spiritual rituals, feasts, mawiomi (gatherings), cultural ceremonies and powwows. In some cases, Mi'kmaq chants consisted of vocables (spoken syllables) as a means of expressing emotion, rather than words with meanings.

Language

Mi'kmaq is among the Wabanaki cluster of Eastern Algonquian languages, which include the various Abenaki dialects, and the Penobscot and Maliseet-Passamaquoddy languages. In the 2011 National Household Survey, 8,935 people reported knowledge of the Mi'kmaq language. ( See also Indigenous Languages in Canada.)

Mi'kmaq is written alphabetically. It has single- and double-letter constants as well as five vowels that make both long and short sounds. Mi'kmaq has a history of pictographs being used, but this writing system was modified by missionaries learning the language to teach Catholicism in the 1600s. Mi'kmaq had as many as 17 different dialects, including the unique Québec dialect Restigouche, but linguistic contact with French and English speakers has eroded the prevalence of the language and smoothed dialectical differences.

Despite challenges, language programs, including high school immersion programs, have helped to revitalize the language. In 1970, there were approximately 6,000 Mi'kmaq speakers, compared to the nearly 9,000 reported in 2011. However, these numbers may be misleading. While the National Household Survey asks speakers to self-report "an understanding" of a language, linguists measure health of a language by the number of fluent speakers. In 1999, a report by the Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Language Centre of Excellence indicated fewer than 3,000 fluent speakers.

Nevertheless, Mi'kmaq is the only Indigenous language in significant active use in Mi'gma'gi (Maliseet had less than 800 speakers in 2011), and as such, is an important symbol of cultural strength and perseverance for the community.

Religion and Spirituality

Mi'kmaq spirituality is influenced by and closely connected to the natural world. The Mi'kmaq believe that living a good, balanced life means respecting and protecting the environment and living in harmony with the people and creatures that live on the earth. Analysis of the Mi'kmaq language enhances the fundamental importance of this worldview. Rather than a sequential, time-based verb tense structure (as in English), the Mi'kmaq language is experiential, relying on the evidence of the speaker to convey meaning.

Mi'kmaq culture and traditional religion is based on legendary figures like Glooscap (also written Kluscap) who is said to have formed the Annapolis Valley by sleeping on the land and using Prince Edward Island as his pillow. The Great Spirit is the creator of the world and all its inhabitants, a concept that was not destroyed when Catholic settlers and missionaries began to influence Mi'kmaq spirituality and religion in the 17th century. ( See also Indigenous People: Religion and Spirituality.)

Origin Stories

The Mi'kmaq, like most Indigenous groups, use stories to tell about the past and about their spirituality. Mi'kmaq oral tradition explains that the world was created in seven stages. The Creator made the sky, the sun, Mother Earth and then the first humans: Glooscap and his grandmother, nephew and mother. From sparks of fire that Glooscap commanded to come forth, came seven men and seven women - the founding families of the seven Mi'gma'gi districts. There are many other origin stories that describe how things came to be and how to live a good life.

Vistas: Little Thunder, Nance Ackerman & Alan Syliboy, National Film Board of Canada

Christianity

In 1610, Henri Membertou, a Mi'kmaq chief ( sagamo or sagamore), became the first Indigenous person to be baptized as a Catholic in New France, beginning a pattern of intense conversion and intermingling of customs. Mi'kmaq peoples, who had readily adapted to European trade goods, were likewise receptive to religious practices.

The Concordat of 1610 - a formal agreement between the Mi'kmaq and the Vatican marked by the creation of a treaty wampum - combined trade, treaty and religion in relations between the Mi'kmaq and the French. The Concordat made the Mi'kmaq Catholic subjects, and therefore legitimized trade and other relations between settlers and Indigenous peoples in Acadia or Mi'gma'gi. Mi'kmaq people continued to practise their own customs, but incorporated the teachings of priests who had learned the Mi'kmaq language, entrenching Catholicism into Mi'kmaq spiritual identity.

Mi'kmaq religion remains firmly based in Catholicism. In the early 1990s, Mi'kmaq peoples from across Mi'gma'gi began celebrating Treaty Day (1 October) by incorporating traditional Mi'kmaq customs like drumming and the burning of sacred herbs into Catholic Mass. However, traditional Mi'kmaq spirituality is still practised today, with a concerted effort on the part of Mi'kmaq people to protect and promote their religious beliefs and customs.

Colonial History

Due to their proximity to the Atlantic, the Mi'kmaq were among the first peoples in North America to interact with European explorers, fishermen and traders. As a result, they quickly suffered depopulation and socio-cultural disruption. Some historians estimate that European diseases resulted in a loss of up to half the Mi'kmaq population from about 1500 to 1600.

As a result of sporadic contact and trade with European fishermen, the Mi'kmaq who encountered the first sustained European settlements in what is now Canada were familiar with the people, their goods and their trade habits. Additionally, Mi'kmaq oral history tells of a Mi'kmaq woman's ancient premonition that people would arrive in Mi'gma'gi on floating islands, and a legendary spirit who travelled across the ocean to find "blue-eyed people." The foretelling of the arrival of Europeans meant Mi'kmaq were prepared when they first encountered fishermen off their shores.

Mi'kmaq participated in the fur trade by serving as intermediaries between Europeans and groups farther west, as fur-bearing animals quickly became scarce in the face of high demand. This fundamentally altered the lifestyle of the Mi'kmaq, who focused on trapping and trading furs rather than subsistence hunting and gathering.

Treaties

Prolonged conflict between French and British colonial powers often pulled Mi'kmaq into the fray. The Mi'kmaq were largely allied with French colonial forces, which had established settlements across Acadia until the 18th century. During that time, and after conflicts with Britain, the Mi'kmaq signed treaties in 1726, 1749, 1752 and 1760-61, followed by two treaties to secure alliances during the American Revolution. These were known as the Peace and Friendship Treaties. The 1726 treaty was the foundation for the subsequent treaties. ( See also Indigenous Peoples: Treaties.)

These treaties between sovereign nations recognize the inherent Indigenous rights of the Mi'kmaq, and form the basis for modern treaty claims and renegotiations. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, though it established Indigenous rights in much of Canada, did not mention Maritime colonies. For this reason, most post-treaty European and Loyalist settlers ignored, or were ignorant of, Mi'kmaq rights.

In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that the Mi'kmaq and the Crown have a historic relation stemming from the treaties of the 1700s, and that the Mi'kmaq have Indigenous rights to the lands described in those treaties. Ever since 1 October 1986, Treaty Day in Nova Scotia and some other parts of Atlantic Canada has commemorated the signing and significance of the Peace and Friendship Treaties.

19th and 20th Century Struggles

Life under British, and later Canadian, governance was not kind to the Mi'kmaq, who were subjected to conscious attempts to alter their lifestyle. Most moves to establish them as agriculturalists failed because of badly conceived programs and encroachments upon reserve lands. Economic patterns that privileged employment as labourers effected irreversible change: crafts, coopering, the porpoise fishery, and road, rail and lumber work integrated the Mi'kmaq into the 19th- and 20th-century economy, but left them socially isolated.

As with many Indigenous peoples in Canada, the Mi'kmaq are strongly affected by the lasting trauma of residential schools. Adding to this cultural, generational and economic dislocation, in the 1940s, the Department of Indian Affairs forced more than 2,000 Mi'kmaq people living in numerous small communities to relocate to government-designated reserves. The moves, undertaken for the sole purpose of streamlining government administration were fraught with mismanagement and experimental tactics, and had disastrous effects on the communities. Homes, churches and industries were abandoned and replaced with poor conditions and economic dependency.

Contemporary Life and Activism

In 2015, there were 13 Mi'kmaq nations in Nova Scotia with a total registered population of 16,268. New Brunswick's nine nations included 8,210 registered people, while the two nations in each of Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador had populations of 1,294 and 26,966 respectively. The three Québec nations had a total population of 6,025. Before 2011, the population of registered Mi'kmaq people in Newfoundland and Labrador was significantly lower; in that year, the federal government recognized the status of more than 23,000 Mi'kmaq people, who formed the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation.

The formation of the Qalipu is one example of continued activism among Mi'kmaq people. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the rights of Donald Marshall, Jr., and thus all Mi'kmaq peoples, to a "moderate livelihood" through hunting and fishing rights. Marshall had been convicted in 1996 of fishing out of season, but the court ruled that the Peace and Friendship Treaties, signed in 1760 and 1761, guaranteed Mi'kmaq these rights.

The decision sparked what is known as the Burnt Church Crisis, where tensions reached a boiling point between Mi'kmaq and non-Indigenous fishermen, who argued that unchecked harvesting in the lobster fishery would lead to devastation of stocks. Despite the pacifist lobbying of organizations like the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association among their own members, some non-Indigenous fishermen destroyed Mi'kmaq traps and other equipment. The situation threatened to devolve into violence. The federal government brought the crisis to somewhat of a close by buying licences and equipment from some non-Indigenous fishermen and entering into agreements with several Mi'kmaq communities to regulate a commercial fishery. Other Mi'kmaq communities did not reach agreements, and continue to petition the federal government to recognize treaty rights.

In October 2013, members of the Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick organized a demonstration against natural gas fracking being conducted on Crown land near their community. The protests centred on environmental arguments against fracking and the unceded nature of the territory in question. Protesters erected blockades on Highway 11 and several organizers were arrested. Non-violent protesters faced off against RCMP officers, producing iconic images and reigniting debate over the scope of Aboriginal title and the politics of environmental stewardship within an industrial economy.

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Mi'kmaq (Mi'kmaw, Micmac or L'nu, "the people" in Mi'kmaq) are Indigenous peoples who are among the original inhabitants in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada. Alternative names for the Mi'kmaq appear in some historical sources and include Gaspesians, Souriquois, Acadians and Tarrantines.

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The Inuit

Name

The people of the Canadian Arctic are known as the Inuit. They used to be called Eskimos, which came from a Native American word for 'eater of raw meat'. Now the Arctic people are officially known as the Inuit, which means 'the people', or singularly, Inuk, which means 'the person'.

Arrival

The Inuit were the last native people to arrive in North America. All the good land to the south was already occupied by hostile Indians so they settled in the Arctic. Nobody else wanted it because it was one of the most extreme climates in the world. But the Inuit were masters at adapting to sustain their people over thousands of years.

Location

The Inuit lived in an area comprising a large part of northern Earth, including Northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and Siberia.

Languages

The languages of the Inuit can be divided into many different languages and dialects. However, all of the Inuit languages come from one main language family: the Inuit-Aleut, also known as the Eskimaleut language family.
The languages groups can be grouped into an Eastern branch and a Western branch, which can then be further divided into individual languages and dialects of those languages.

Eastern Branch (Inuktitut languages):

The Eastern Branch languages have three different names for the language.

Inuktitut (in Canada)

Inupiaq (in Alaska)

Kalaallisut (in Greenland)

There are three different names, but it is considered to be the same language.

There are also many dialects from this language branch spoken in the three countries.

Western Branch (Yupik languages):

Yupik is divided into three distinct languages.

Central Alaskan Yupik

Pacific Gulf Yupik (Alaska)

Siberian Yupik (Canada and Alaska)

Each of these three languages has several dialects as well.

The Inuktitut and Yupik languages are both quite hard to learn and speak, because they are very complex languages.

Nations

The Inuit have a distinct culture and appearance from other First Peoples groups in Canada, which really set them apart. Historically, the Canadian Inuit were divided into eight main groups: Labrador Inuit, Ungava or New Quebec Inuit, Baffin Island, Igloolik, Caribou, Netsilik, Copper and Western Arctic Inuit.

Map Source - The Canadian Encyclopedia

Labrador Inuit

The Ungava or The New Quebec Inuit

Baffin Island Inuit

Igloolik (or Iglulik)

Location

Western Baffin Island and Melville Peninsula

Caribou Inuit

Name

They were named Caribou since they almost completely rely on Caribou for food, shelter and clothing.

The Caribou have their name because
of their dependence on the animal

Location

West of Hudson Bay

Netsilik

Location

Arctic coast of Canada, west of Hudson Bay

Copper Inuit

Location

Banks and Victoria islands, and mainland region of central Arctic

Western Arctic Inuit

Name

They were formerly known as the MacKenzie Inuit.

Location

MacKenzie River valley

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The Arctic People - Groups in this Region

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The Inuit Name The people of the Canadian Arctic are known as the Inuit. They used to be called Eskimos, which came from a Native American word for 'eater of raw meat'. Now the Arctic people are officially known as the Inuit, which means 'the people', or singularly, Inuk, which means 'the person'.

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Metis

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When the fur trade moved west, in the 1700s and 1800s, many French-Canadian fur traders found Native wives and had children. The children born from these unions formed a new Nation in Canada - the 'Western Métis'.

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Welcome to the First Peoples' Language Map of B.C.

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British Columbia is home to 203 First Nations communities and an amazing diversity of Indigenous languages; approximately 60% of the First Nations languages of Canada are spoken in B.C. You can access indexes of all the languages, First Nations and Community Champions through the top navigation on all pages of this website.

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The term First Nation came into common usage in the 1970s to replace the word "Indian," which many people found offensive. Although the term First Nation is widely used, no legal definition of it exists, unlike "Indian". The word "Indian" is still used to describe one of three groups of people recognized as Aboriginal in the Constitution Act, 1982. The other two groups are the Métis and Inuit.

There are six major cultural regions of First Nations in Canada. From east to west, these are the Woodland First Nations, the Iroquois First Nations of southeastern Ontario, the Plains First Nations, the Plateau First Nations, the First Nations of the Pacific Coast and the First Nations of the Mackenzie and Yukon River basins.

There are many unique cultures, languages and histories among first Nations. Their collective presence in North America does not diminish their distinctiveness any more than the collective presence of nations in Europe lessens the distinctions between the cultures of Poland and Italy, for example. The practice of identifying all First Nations as a homogeneous group obscures the unique and rich traditions that each First Nation has developed and nurtured.

First Nations today retain their cultural and linguistic distinctiveness. As with other cultures throughout the world, the cultural identity of many contemporary First Nations results from a long history of influences, some peaceful and some arising out of conflict. Some First Nations merged with others. Some were simply absorbed over time by larger Nations, and some disappeared altogether. The cultures and languages evident today are the products of complicated, centuries-old processes that shaped the evolution of most, if not all, cultures everywhere.

Although there are many differences between First Nations, there are commonalities as well. For example, all First Nations were dependent on the land for survival and prosperity. All First Nations were hunters and gatherers. Some were also farmers. Without the skills and knowledge to hunt and fish and to gather food and medicines, First Nations would not exist today.

Another commonality is that all First Nations lived in organized societies. Individuals, families and larger groups of people, such as clans, tribes and Nations, behaved according to a broad range of agreed-upon social, political and economic values.