Canada's First Nations

Montagnais and Naskapi
Language Family: Algonkian
The Montagnais and the Naskapi were nomadic peoples who lived by hunting and fishing. They were the first to come into prolonged contact with Europeans. The Montagnais inhabited the huge territory bounded on the south by the St. Lawrence, on the west by the St-Maurice River, on the east by Sept-Iles and on the north by the watershed separating the rivers flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into James Bay. The Naskapi occupied the Labrador peninsula east of the imaginary lines between Sept-Iles and Lake Nichicun and between Lake Nichicun and Ungava Bay, right to the Strait of Belle Isle, a region inhabited by the Inuit. (DCB)

Hurons
Language Family: Iroquoian
In the early seventeenth century, the Hurons (or Wyandots), allied in origin and language to the Iroquois, dwelt in several large villages in a narrow district on the high ground between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. The Hurons were divided into four tribes: the Bear (Attignaouantan), the Cord (Attingueenongnahak), the Rock (Ahrendarrhonon) and the Deer (Tahontaenrat). A few smaller Iroquoian communities, and at least one Algonkian community, united with them from time to time for protection against the Iroquois. The real name of the confederacy was Wendat ("Islanders" or "Dwellers on a Peninsula"), hence the name Wyandot, adopted by the descendants of the Hurons in Oklahoma, Michigan and Kansas. The Hurons built up a powerful trading enterprise in which they acted as middlemen between the northern tribes and the French. It was destroyed by the Iroquois in 1650. For their food supply, the Hurons depended principally on maize, with beans and pumpkins as subsidiary crops. (IC; DCB)

Algonkins
Language Family: Algonkian
The numerous bands that inhabited the area between the territories of the Montagnais and the Chippewas (or Ojibwas), and south of the present city of Ottawa, were called Algonkins by Champlain and other seventeenth-century writers. They and the Montagnais were allies of the French in their conflicts with the Iroquois. (DCB)

Chippewas
Language Family: Algonkian
In French, they were called Sauteux or Saulteux ("dwellers by the Sault"). The Chippewas occupied the northern shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, from Georgian Bay to the Prairies and northwards to the territory of the Cree, to whom they were closely related (the boundary was the watershed where the rivers flow north into Hudson Bay). They were divided into four groups, or tribes: the Ojibwas of the Lake Superior region; the Mississaugas of Manitoulin Island and of the mainland around the Mississagi River; the Ottawas of the Georgian Bay area; and the Potawatomis, who lived on the west side of Lake Huron in what is now Michigan. The Lake Superior Ojibwas, the Ottawas and the Potawatomis formed a loose confederacy which, in the eighteenth century, was called the Council of Three Fires. The first Chippewas known to the French prior to 1660 were those around present-day Sault Ste. Marie, hence the name "Sauters." (DCB)

Micmac
Language Family: Algonkian
A member tribe of the Abenaki Confederacy. At the time of European contact, the Micmac occupied Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, the northern portion of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They are the Souriquois of the Jesuit Relations and the Gaspesians of LeClercq. Like their neighbours, the Maliseet, the Micmac remained allies of the French throughout the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A Micmac community was also established in Newfoundland, at Conne River, in the nineteenth century. The Micmac and the Maliseet subsisted on a wide variety of riverine resources, including salmon, striped bass, eel and gaspereau. Along coastal areas, seal hunting and shellfish gathering were important. During the winter months, they relied heavily on moose, caribou and porcupine for subsistence.

Maliseet
Language Family: Algonkian
A tribe closely related to the Micmac that lived along the Saint John River in New Brunswick. Their territory stretched north beyond the drainage basin of the Saint John River to the shore of the St. Lawrence opposite Tadoussac; to the south, it included part of the State of Maine. The Passamaquoddy spoke a dialect similar to that of the Maliseet, and occupied all the regions around Passamaquoddy Bay, the St. Croix River and Schoodic Lake, on the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick. The Maliseet/Passamaquoddy, like most Algonkin tribes, lived in conical wigwams covered with birchbark, and they made canoes and household utensils from the same material.

Crees
Language Family: Algonkian
The French "Cris" include both the prairie and the woodland tribes, situated to the west of James Bay. The English "Cree" include the prairie and woodland tribes; the Muskegons, the Algonkin band inhabiting the swampy land around James Bay ("Swampy Cree"); the Naskapi; the Montagnais-Naskapi and the Montagnais of the Quebec peninsula.

Abenakis
Language Family: Algonkian
A loose alliance of tribes in what are now Maine and New Brunswick, which included, among others, the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Penobscots, Norridgewocks, and possibly the Sokokis. The Abenakis were allies of the French in the struggle with the English colonists of New England and the League of the Iroquois.

Penobscots
Language Family: Algonkian
In French, they were called Pentagouets. A tribe of the Abenaki Confederacy that occupied the territory on both sides of Penobscot Bay and River, and laid claim to the Penobscot River basin.

Iroquois
Language Family: Iroquoian
Derived from an Algonkian word meaning "serpent." In the seventeenth century, the five member tribes of the League of the Iroquois of the Five Nations Confederacy (Kayanerenh-kowa, "the great peace," also known as Kanonsionni, the "long house") inhabited the territory south of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, from roughly the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain to Rochester, in what is now the State of New York. From east to west, they were: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. Their struggle with the Hurons for control of the fur trade largely dominated the military history of New France from the 1630s until the arrival of the Carignan-Sali�res regiment, in the summer of 1665.

Inuit
Language Family: Inuktitut
The Inuit occupied the Arctic regions of Canada, Alaska and Greenland, as well as parts of the Subarctic coasts, excluding the southern and western shores of James Bay. They are distinct in physical appearance, language and customs from all the Indian tribes of North America. Historically, the Inuit comprised ten distinct groups occupying the Canadian Arctic: Mackenzie (Mackenzie River region), Copper (Coronation Gulf), Caribou (western Hudson Bay), Netsilik (Boothia Peninsula), Igloolik (western Baffin Island and Melville Peninsula), Sadlermiut (Southampton Island), Baffin (central and eastern Baffin Island), Polar (northwestern Greenland), Hudson Bay (northeastern Hudson Bay) and Labrador (north and east coasts, south to Hamilton Inlet). For subsistence during the summer months, they relied on fishing and caribou hunting in the interior, and on whaling, and seal and walrus hunting along the coast. Seal hunting and ice fishing provided the major food sources in the winter in most regions, with some caribou hunting in the interior

Tlingit
Language Family: Tlingit
The Tlingit occupied the coast of southeastern Alaska from Mount St. Elias to the Portland Canal, with the exception of part of Prince of Wales Island, which had been occupied by the Haida shortly before contact with Europeans. Like the other tribes of the North Pacific Coast, their staple food was fish (principally halibut, salmon and eulachon), but the flesh of seals, porpoises and sea otters, and an abundance of berries, roots, shellfish and seaweed, gave their diet a considerable measure of variety.

Haida
Language Family: Haida
The dense forests of the interior of the Queen Charlotte Islands, northern British Columbia, had little game, but the deeply indented coastline was frequented by shoals of salmon and halibut, and by sea otters, sea lions and fur seals, so the Haida were almost wholly dependent on the sea for their livelihood. The Haida were mighty hunters on the sea, and captured more fur seals and sea otters than any other tribe along the Pacific Coast.

Coast Tsimshian
Language Family: Tsimshian
The Tsimshian ("people inside the Skeena River") of northern British Columbia were divided into three groups: the Tsimshian proper, around the mouth of the Skeena River; the Gitksan, farther up the Skeena; and the Niska, who inhabited the basin of the Nass (Niska) River. Owing to their geographical location, the Niska and the Gitksan devoted more time to the hunting of land mammals (particularly mountain goats and bears) than the Tsimshian proper, who directed their energy to halibut fishing, and the hunting of seals, sea lions and sea otters among the islands off the coast. Nevertheless, all three groups depended mainly on the incredible numbers of salmon that migrated each year up the rivers, and towards the end of winter all three gathered at the various eulachon fishing stations along the Nass River.

Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl)
Language Family: Kwakiutl
The Kwakiutl occupied the northern corner of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, from Johnstone Strait to Cape Cook, and the mainland coast from Douglas Channel to Bute Inlet, except a small portion controlled by the Bella Coola. The material culture of coastal tribes such as the Kwakiutl hinged on the shoals of salmon that ascended the creeks and rivers each year, and on the abundant stands of free-grained cedar trees. The salmon provided them with an assured supply of food throughout the year, and the cedar furnished timber for dwellings, canoes and household utensils, as well as bark for clothing and mats.

Nuu-Chah-Nulth (Nootka)
Language Family: Nootkan
The Nootka who inhabited the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, from Cape Cook to Port San Juan, had the distinction of being the only whale hunters in British Columbia.

Coast Salish
Language Family: Salishan
The Coast Salish inhabited the mainland coast of southern British Columbia from Bute Inlet to the mouth of the Columbia River, and the portion of Vancouver Island not occupied by the Kwakiutl and the Nootka.

Sioux
Language Family: Siouan
In the seventeenth century, MŽdard Chouart des Groseilliers and Radisson encountered the Sioux in the region of Lake Superior. Today, a few Dakota Sioux live on small reserves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They are descendants of the bands that, under their leader, Sitting Bull, rebelled against the United States government in 1876, annihilated General Custer's force (which was sent against them) and found asylum in Canada.


Source: warmuseum.ca