3.7 Canada’s First Nations

Learning Goals for This Chapter Look at population patterns of Aboriginal Peoples How land claims are changing the future for Canada’s first nations people Difficulties of building human systems in Nunavut

Terms to Remember Aboriginal People The people who are descended from the inhabitants of a place. In Canada Aboriginal Peoples are generally divided into three groups (First Nations, Inuit, Metis)

Terms to Remember First Nations Refers to all Aboriginals, except Metis across Canada who live south of the Arctic coast region

Terms to Remember Status Indian A person who is registered as an Indian under the Indian Act

Terms to Remember Non-Status Indian An Indian person who is not registered under the Indian Act

Terms to Remember Treaty Indian First Nations people who belong to a First Nation that signed a treaty with the government

Terms to Remember Inuit These people are the people who live in the Arctic region of Canada

Terms to Remember Metis Descendants of European Fur traders and explorers who married First Nations Peoples

Aboriginal Traditional Housing Longhouses

1. Longhouse Families lived together and shared resources. Open fires provided heat and cooking facilities

1. Longhouse Longhouses could be 200 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 20 feet high Inside the longhouse, raised platforms created a second story, which was used for sleeping space Mats and wood screens divided the longhouse into separate rooms.

1. Longhouse

Aboriginal Traditional Housing Wigwam

2. Wigwam Wigwams are small houses, usually 8-10 feet tall. Wigwams are made of wooden frames which are covered with woven mats and sheets of birch bark The frame can be shaped like a dome, like a cone, or like a rectangle with an arched roof

2. Wigwam Once the birch bark is in place, ropes or strips of wood are wrapped around the wigwam to hold the bark in place. Wigwams are good houses for people who stay in the same place for months at a time. Wigwams are not portable, but they are small and easy to build

Aboriginal Traditional Housing Arctic Igloo

3. Arctic Igloo Igloos (or Iglu) are snow houses used by the Inuit (Eskimos) of northern Canada. The igloo is dome-shaped and slightly excavated, but it is built from the snow, with large blocks of ice set in a spiral pattern and packed with snow to form the dome.

3. Arctic Igloo Igloos are good houses for the polar region, where the earth is frozen, the snow cover is deep, and there are few trees Snow is a good insulator, and dense blocks of ice offer good protection against the arctic winds.

Aboriginal Traditional Housing Tepee

4. Tepee A tepee is made of a cone-shaped wooden frame with a covering of buffalo hide Like modern tents, tepees are carefully designed to set up and break down quickly.

4. Tepee As a tribe moved from place to place, each family would bring their tipi poles and hide tent along with them. Tepees are good houses for people who are always on the move

4. Tepee There were fewer trees on the Great Plains than in the Woodlands, so it was important for Plains tribes to carry their long poles with them whenever they traveled instead of trying to find new ones each time they moved.