Indigenous peoples in Canada

Based on Wikipedia: Indigenous peoples in Canada

Twenty thousand years ago, a small band of humans stood at the edge of the known world. Behind them lay Siberia. Ahead, across a land bridge exposed by falling sea levels, stretched an entirely new continent—one that no human had ever seen. They couldn't have known they were about to become the founding population of two continents, or that their descendants would one day number in the millions and develop hundreds of distinct languages. They were simply following the animals they hunted: giant beavers the size of bears, woolly mammoths, and herds of ancient caribou.

This is the story of how those first arrivals became the Indigenous peoples of Canada—the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis who today represent about five percent of the Canadian population and include over six hundred recognized governments with distinctive cultures, languages, art, and music.

Trapped in an Ice Age Waiting Room

The journey from Siberia to the rest of the Americas wasn't a quick migration. It was more like being stuck in a very cold waiting room for thousands of years.

Here's what happened: During the Wisconsin glaciation, which lasted from roughly fifty thousand to seventeen thousand years ago, sea levels dropped dramatically as water became locked up in massive ice sheets. This exposed a land bridge connecting Siberia to what is now Alaska—a stretch of terrain called Beringia. People walked across.

But then they got stuck.

The Laurentide ice sheet—a wall of ice up to two miles thick in places—covered most of what we now call Canada. Alaska itself was ice-free because it received too little snowfall to build glaciers, but heading south or east was impossible. For somewhere between ten thousand and twenty thousand years, these first Americans lived in isolation in Beringia. Genetic studies confirm this: all Indigenous peoples of the Americas share a single ancestral population, one that developed its distinctive genetic signatures during this long isolation.

Around sixteen thousand five hundred years ago, the glaciers began to melt. Corridors opened. And finally, after millennia of waiting, people could move into the vast lands to the south and east.

Two Paths Into a New World

Scientists have proposed two main routes these early migrants might have taken. The first is an ice-free corridor that opened along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Picture a highway of sorts, with walls of ice on either side, leading south through what is now Alberta and into the Great Plains beyond.

The second proposed route is more dramatic: a coastal migration. People may have traveled—on foot where possible, in primitive boats where necessary—down the Pacific coast, hopscotching from beach to beach, from one ice-free refuge to another, all the way down to South America, and only then spreading inland.

Evidence for this coastal route is frustratingly hard to find. Why? Because sea levels have risen hundreds of meters since the last ice age. The beaches those early travelers would have walked are now deep underwater.

The Old Crow Flats: A Window Into Deep Time

In the northern Yukon, there's a place called Old Crow Flats that escaped the glaciers entirely. While most of Canada lay buried under ice, this basin remained open—a refuge for plants, animals, and eventually people.

The fossils found here read like a list of creatures from another world: hyenas, giant camels, mammoths. These animals had no business being in North America—at least, that's what you might think if you didn't know about the land bridge and the long-ago connections between continents.

Evidence of human habitation here dates back roughly twelve thousand years. Nearby, at a site called Bluefish Caves, archaeologists discovered mammoth bone that appears to have been worked by human hands, also dated to about twelve thousand years ago. Someone, long before the pyramids of Egypt or the first cities of Mesopotamia, was living in the far north of what would become Canada.

The Clovis People and What Came After

In the nineteen thirties, archaeologists working in western North America discovered something remarkable: evidence of a widespread ancient culture dating back thirteen thousand five hundred years. They called these people the Clovis culture, after Clovis, New Mexico, where distinctive spear points were first identified.

For decades, Clovis was thought to represent the very first Americans—the ancestral population from which all Indigenous peoples descended. More recent discoveries have complicated this picture, suggesting that humans may have arrived even earlier by coastal routes. But Clovis remains one of the earliest well-documented cultures in the Americas.

After Clovis came a cascade of regional cultures, each adapting to local conditions as the ice age finally ended and the climate shifted. The Folsom tradition, for instance, developed specialized tools for hunting bison—the animal that would become central to life on the Great Plains for thousands of years.

A Continent of Diversity

Canada is enormous. It spans multiple climate zones, from arctic tundra to temperate rainforest, from prairie grasslands to the rocky shield country around the Great Lakes. This geographic diversity created cultural diversity. Different environments demanded different ways of life, different technologies, different spiritual practices.

By about eight thousand years ago, the climate had stabilized into something recognizable—not so different from today. Populations began to grow. Trade networks formed. Cultures became more complex.

Consider just a few examples of this diversity:

On the west coast, by seven thousand years ago, sophisticated cultures had organized their entire societies around salmon fishing. The Nuu-chah-nulth of Vancouver Island had developed advanced techniques for hunting whales with long spears—one of the most dangerous and demanding forms of hunting imaginable.

On the Atlantic coast, the Maritime Archaic people had become expert sea-mammal hunters. They built longhouses and developed long-distance trade networks, using white chert—a type of rock quarried from Labrador to Maine—as currency. Their culture thrived for thousands of years, from roughly seven thousand BCE to fifteen hundred BCE.

On the Great Plains, buffalo became everything. The hunting grounds at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, near Fort Macleod, Alberta, were in continuous use for about five thousand years. Hunters would drive herds of buffalo off cliffs, then process the meat, hides, and bones below. The name itself, in the Blackfoot language, refers to a young man who wanted to watch the buffalo fall from below the cliff and was killed by the cascade of animals.

In southern Ontario, the Wendat peoples settled along the Eramosa River around eight thousand to seven thousand BCE—roughly ten thousand years ago. Initially they hunted caribou on glacier-covered land, but as the climate warmed and forests grew, their way of life evolved accordingly.

The Na-Dene: A Linguistic Family Spanning a Continent

Starting around eight thousand BCE, a group now known as the Na-Dene people spread across much of northwest and central North America. They were the ancestors of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples—a linguistic family that would eventually include nations as geographically distant as the Navajo and Apache of the American Southwest.

That's worth pausing over. The same broad language family connects peoples from the Canadian subarctic to the deserts of Arizona. It's a reminder of how interconnected Indigenous North America always was, despite the continent's vastness.

What's in a Name?

Terminology matters deeply when discussing Indigenous peoples in Canada, and the landscape of acceptable terms has shifted dramatically over the past several decades.

The word "Indian," still used in legal documents like the Canadian Constitution and the Indian Act, is now considered pejorative by most. The same goes for "Eskimo," which has been replaced by "Inuit" in Canada and Greenland. (Interestingly, the Yupik peoples of Alaska and Siberia do not consider themselves Inuit and prefer their own name—a reminder that "Inuit" isn't a universal term for Arctic peoples.)

"Aboriginal" was the preferred collective term for some years and appears in Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982, which recognizes Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples. But this term, too, is now considered somewhat dated and is being replaced by "Indigenous peoples."

Since the nineteen seventies, "First Nations" has come into general use as a replacement for "Indians" and "Indian bands." But even this term is evolving. On reserves, many people prefer to identify by their specific nation—"I am Haida," or "we are Kwantlen"—rather than using the more generic collective term.

The term "Native American" is almost never used in Canada, to avoid confusion with the United States. "Native Canadians" saw some use until the nineteen eighties but has since fallen out of favor.

Why does this matter? Because names carry power. The shift from imposed colonial terms to self-chosen identities reflects a broader movement toward Indigenous self-determination—toward peoples defining themselves on their own terms rather than being defined by others.

Legal Categories and Constitutional Rights

Beyond ethnic and cultural identities, Indigenous peoples in Canada are also divided into legal categories based on their relationship with the Crown—which, in this context, means the Canadian state.

The Constitution Act of 1867 gave the federal government sole responsibility for "Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians." This created a complex legal architecture that persists to this day.

The Indian Act, passed in 1876, established something called the Indian Register—an official list of people designated as "status Indians." If you're on this list, you have certain rights and are subject to certain regulations. But many Indigenous people are not on this list: non-treaty First Nations, Métis, and Inuit were historically excluded from the Indian Act's provisions.

Two important court cases clarified the legal status of these groups. In 1939, a case called Reference Re Eskimos established that Inuit were covered by the constitutional term "Indians." In 2013, Daniels v. Canada extended this recognition to Métis and non-status First Nations. The legal category "Indian" in the Constitution, in other words, is much broader than the everyday use of that term might suggest.

The Métis: A People Born Between Worlds

The Métis deserve special attention because their story is unlike that of any other Indigenous group in Canada. They didn't exist before European contact. They emerged from it.

Starting in the mid-seventeenth century, First Nations and Inuit peoples intermarried with European settlers—primarily French fur traders. Their children grew up between two cultures, speaking multiple languages, navigating both Indigenous and European worlds. Over generations, these mixed communities developed their own distinct identity, culture, and even language (Michif, which blends French and Cree).

The Métis played crucial roles in the fur trade, serving as intermediaries, interpreters, and guides. They knew the land like Indigenous peoples and understood European commerce like colonists. This made them indispensable—and, eventually, threatening to colonial powers who wanted to control both the land and its resources.

The Fur Trade and Colonial Entanglement

First Nations and Métis peoples were not merely affected by European colonization—they were central to making it possible. The North American fur trade, which drove much of early colonial expansion, depended entirely on Indigenous knowledge, labor, and cooperation.

European traders wanted beaver pelts. Indigenous peoples knew where to find beavers, how to trap them, how to prepare the pelts. They also knew the land—the rivers and portage routes that made transportation possible, the best places to overwinter, which plants were edible and which were poisonous.

This created complex relationships. Treaties were signed. Alliances were formed. But as European settlements grew and Indigenous populations declined—from disease, from displacement, from violence—the balance of power shifted. What had been partnerships became, increasingly, domination.

The Legacy of Colonization

The impact of settler colonialism on Indigenous peoples in Canada has been profound and devastating. It shows up everywhere: in the country's culture, history, politics, laws, and legislatures.

Historically, the Canadian government pursued assimilationist policies designed to eliminate Indigenous cultures. Children were taken from their families and sent to residential schools where they were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their traditions. Communities were displaced from their traditional lands. Ceremonies were banned. Entire ways of life were systematically attacked.

Some scholars and politicians have described what happened as cultural genocide. Others argue it meets the definition of genocide, full stop.

The effects persist today. Indigenous communities in Canada face higher rates of poverty, lower life expectancy, inadequate housing, and limited access to clean water. The trauma of residential schools—the last of which closed only in 1996—continues to ripple through generations.

Self-Government and Recognition

In recent decades, there have been significant moves toward recognizing Indigenous rights and self-government. Modern treaty processes have given some Indigenous nations control over cultural, political, health, and economic decisions within their communities.

National Indigenous Peoples Day, celebrated on June 21st, recognizes the contributions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples to Canadian history and society. It's a small gesture, perhaps, but symbolic of a broader shift in Canadian attitudes.

First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples have become prominent figures in Canadian public life—in politics, arts, literature, sports, and business. They've helped shape what it means to be Canadian, even as they maintain their own distinct identities and push back against assimilation.

Looking Back Twenty Thousand Years

It's worth returning, in closing, to those first arrivals standing at the edge of Beringia.

They had no way of knowing what lay ahead—the thousands of years of isolation, the eventual spread across two continents, the development of hundreds of languages and countless cultural traditions. They couldn't have imagined the arrival of Europeans, the devastating impact of colonization, or the ongoing struggles and triumphs of their descendants.

They were simply following the animals, adapting to their environment, surviving. And in doing so, they began a story that continues to unfold today—a story that is, in many ways, the oldest continuous human story in the Americas.

When we talk about Indigenous peoples in Canada, we're talking about that story: twenty thousand years of human history, adaptation, creativity, and resilience. We're talking about people who aren't relics of the past but living nations with their own governments, languages, and visions for the future. We're talking about five percent of the Canadian population—over a million people—who carry within them the longest history of human life on this continent.

That's not just Canadian history. That's human history. And it deserves to be understood on its own terms.