CANADA’S FIRST NATIONSSome examples of their lives in

the pre-European era

Atlantic Coast

Subarctic

Traits

• Cedar homes and boats

• Totem poles and very characteristic art

• Reverence for the salmon and killer whale/orca

• Sedentary fishermen/fishers, hunters, gatherers.

• Potlatch-large festival/party where hosts gave guests gifts to show prestige

The Plains People

•Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta•Example nations: Cree, Blackfoot,

Blood, Dene (Canada)•Sioux, Navajo, Cheyenne, Crow, , Lakota Sioux, Cherokee,Apache

(U.S.A.)

The People Hollywood made famous!

• They were a nomadic people, following the buffalo herds.• The Plains people hunted small and large animals.  The main food they

ate was the buffalo (bison).  They dried the buffalo meat to make jerky.  They also ate the liver, heart, kidneys and tongue.  They did the same with the elk, deer, antelope and pronghorn.  The other large animals they ate were wolf, bear and beaver.  The small animals that they ate were rabbits, gophers, prairie chickens, ducks, fish, geese and grouse. They used the Buffalo for tipis and travois carts. They were known for their horses (which the Spanish introduced to Americas).

• The tradition of the Sundance was a test of bravery and marked a passage into adulthood.

• The Medicine Bundle was a tradition that was sacred.

• After the 1600s, French explorers and the plains people intermarried and led to the Metis of today (mixed blood people).

The Sundance:This sacred ceremony was and is the spiritual core of Plains life.  The

participants, who endure three days of total fasting (without both food and water), pray

and dance for the Creator to bestow blessings and health for their families and communities. Under the chest skin, pegs

were inserted and tied to a central pole by a rope. The dancer would work themselves

into a frenzy and pull violently away from the pole. The scars left when the dancer pulled away from the pole were signs of honour!

OUCH!

•Woodlands People

Ontario and QuebecNorthern Cree, Huron, Montagnais, Algonguin, The Five Nations of the

Iroquois Confederacy(Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondoga,

Cayuga), Ojibway

• Some semi-nomadic, some permanent farming settlements (Mohawk longhouses in Palisades villages-tall walls for protection)

• Big and small game hunters and gatherers• Birch bark used in canoes and wigwams(homes)• Many wars: Huron vs. Iroquois• Fur trade• Dead elevated on platforms

WIGWAM

BIRCHBARK CANOE

LONGHOUSESLONGHOUSES

Mohawk is an Algonquin term that means "eaters of men". In ancient times, the Mohawk sometimes practiced cannibalism in order to obtain the strength of their conquered enemies. Amongst themselves, the Mohawk considered themselves the "People of the Place of the Flint". Within the Iroquois League, they were the "Keepers of the Eastern Door" because they were the easternmost member of the League.

II’’M NOT A MOHAWK, fool!M NOT A MOHAWK, fool!

LACROSSE!

Atlantic Coast

• N.S., N.B., PEI AND NFLD.• Similar to the woodlands.• Semi-nomadic. Summers by the ocean. Winters

in the forest.• Hunters and gatherers.• Birch bark canoes and wigwams.• Dream catchers, sweatlodges, SWEET GRASS

CEREMONIES, Glooscap and basket weaving.• Include Mi’kmaq, Malecite/Maliseet, Abenaki and

the now extinct Beothuk of Newfoundland.

Mi’kmaqi

Mi’kmaq Creator Gloosecap

Truro at Millbrook Parrsboro

Inside a Malecite wood cabin

Shanawdithit:The Last Beothuk

A drawing by Shanawdithit of a Beothuk dancing woman

Sketch of a Beothuk village

The Arctic and Subarctic

• The Central Inuit, Labrador Inuit, Northern Cree near Hudson Bay, Dene near Yellowknife, Ojibwa, Chipewyan, Naskapi, the Innu of Labrador-Quebec

• The region of the Arctic is the coldest and harshest region in Canada.  The temperatures average between minus twenty-nine and minus thirty-four degrees Celsius.  Due to the coldness, very little vegetation grows in the Arctic.

Thus, the people had to adapt in very creative ways:

Bone sunglasses, whale and sealskin clothing (ugh boots, parkas), whale oil

lamps, igloos, dog sleds, skin boats (kayaks and umiaks), soap stone carvings, snow

shoes

Inukshuk: Silent Messengers of the Arctic

SOAPSTONE CARVING

Sealskin boots

UMIAK• The "umiak" is a large open skin boat once widely used

throughout the Arctic for whale hunting, or moving materials and groups of people.

• It is sometimes called the "women's boat". When people or possessions were moved, women did the rowing or paddling - the man sat aft and steered. Otherwise, men usually used kayaks.

• Capable of carrying large loads, these boats allowed whole families to change their dwelling places. Umiaks could carry so many people that when the Russians dominated the Aleutian sealskin trade, they forbade the use of them for fear that armed boarding parties might storm their ships.

• Animal skins (usually walrus) were stretched over a wooden (driftwood) frame that had to be skillfully constructed to provide the strength needed for such a large boat.

• At between 22-33 feet / 7-10 meters long and about 5 feet / 1.5 meters wide, umiaks could carry 10 to 15 people, and yet they were still light enough to be carried over ice or land by about six people.

Sub Arctic Tattooed women

Kayak

A SAD NORTHERN TALE– In the 1950s, the Canadian government became increasingly concerned about

its sovereignty in the east Arctic archipelago. The United States and Canada jointly ran a weather station on Ellesmere Island, but Canadian officials wanted permanent residents there. The remedy to both the geopolitical and welfare problems was simple: uproot the Ungava Inuit and plant them 1,200 miles north, on Ellesmere. In “The Long Exile,” Melanie McGrath tells the story of this forced relocation — a tale of almost unrelenting horror — with so much moral vigor and descriptive verve that one quits reading only long enough to shake one’s head in disbelief. And then, with a shiver, reads on.

• To succeed on Hudson Bay, the Inuit needed to know everything about their immediate surroundings: the landmarks, the animals’ travel and migration routes, the location of fresh-water springs, berries, bird eggs and willow-worm cocoons to dip into seal fat for dinner. Describing the land’s natural features with lyrical precision, McGrath emphasizes that the harsh physical realities of this place shaped not only how the Inuit lived but also their personalities, making a strong case that psychology is destiny. At one time, expressing rage, lust or ambition were considered so threatening to Inuit group survival that persistent offenders were banished. But while serenity and self-restraint were adaptive in the Inuit’s ancestral environment, their unwillingness to speak out, on Ellesmere, would almost kill them.

• It was the late summer of 1953 when the Canadian government deposited three reluctant Inuit families, including a master carver named Paddy Aqiatusuk, on a narrow Ellesmere beach. They had been promised abundant game and a return ticket in one year’s time if they were unhappy. They were, in fact, instantly miserable.

• At 81 degrees north latitude, Ellesmere is, McGrath notes, the harshest terrain that humans have ever continuously inhabited. A high arctic desert, its interior is “an impenetrable mass of frozen crags and deep fjords.” The Inuit soon learned that marine mammals were scarce, as were caribou, fox and fresh water. Their clothing wasn’t warm enough, and their sleds and harnesses were all wrong for the rocky terrain. The rough waters made hunting by kayak impossible, and the dry wind made their dogs’ lungs bleed. Sufficient snow for snow houses arrived late, leaving the settlers in flimsy canvas tents until late winter. There wasn’t enough fuel for fires. The air was almost 30 degrees colder than back home, and the near constant wind made it feel more than 50 degrees worse. Four months of darkness “made hunting an almost daily terror,” McGrath writes. Ellesmere supported a small musk ox population, but the police detachment, 40 miles from the Inuit encampment, forbade killing them. The starving Inuit ate bird feathers, made broth from boot liners. “The children leaked diarrhea then vomit which the women in the camp fed to the dogs rather than have it go to waste.”

• Too reticent to complain, even when to save her family from starvation, Aqiatusuk’s 6-year-old granddaughter was forced onto the ice to hunt in total darkness, the Inuit persevered. When they finally screwed up their courage and asked to go home, the police refused. It was logistically complicated: the Inuit must cope. Government careers were on the line: the colony had to succeed. Its inhabitants were the equivalent of national flags fluttering in the wind.

• As the years wore on, the Inuit gradually learned how to survive on Ellesmere. They constructed huts from scrap wood, revamped their sleds and dog harnesses.They learned the beluga’s migration route and would eventually hunt over a range of 6,864 square miles each year. In 1962, the government sent a teacher to the island, but only two school books: one on how to run a bank, the other called “The Roads of Texas.”

• Forty years after the first families left Ungava for Ellesmere, the Canadian government held hearings to investigate the relocation program. At its conclusion, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples called the relocation “one of the worst human rights violations in the history of Canada.” The country was shocked by the abuse and arrogance of its leaders, who eventually made financial reparations of 10 million Canadian dollars to the survivors and their families. But the government has yet to apologize.

CHILL OUT in your COOL bone sunglasses! Guaranteed to stop snowblindness!

1725

WOODLANDS

Atlantic Coast