Welcome to Canada e-BookSkip Navbar and Go to Side MenuGo directly to ContentGo to Site MapStatistics Canada
 FrançaisContact UsHelpSearchCanada Site
 The DailyCanadian StatisticsCommunity ProfilesOur products and servicesHome
 CensusCanadian StatisticsCommunity ProfilesOur products and servicesOther links
The Land > The human imprint... > Ways of life
List of tables - The LandList of charts - The LandList of supplemental texts - The LandList of photographs - The LandList of audio clips - The Land
Go to Canada e-Book's Home page
The Land

The Aboriginal peoples

  See also...
  The Aboriginal peoples
  The Europeans

In 1535, when Jacques Cartier reached the island that is today known as Montréal, he discovered that it had "fine ploughed land." This was the land of the farming peoples who occupied the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence region at that time, living in villages of as many as 2,000 inhabitants. Because they sustained the community by cultivating what they called 'the three sisters'—corn, beans and squash—the women were highly respected. The men, for their part, fished and trapped to supplement the basic vegetarian diet. After a few decades in one place, when the soil was depleted, these peoples moved their villages and cleared new land. Scattered bands of nomadic hunters lived on the wide belt of boreal forest and taiga that crosses Canada from Labrador to the Yukon, as well as in the forests of what are now the Atlantic provinces.

  Photo - Moose
 

Moose
©2003 ICN-RCI / Hemera

Because the environment was ill suited to farming, these groups got most of their food from the abundant wildlife with which they shared the land. In the winter, they spread out through the forest to track moose, caribou and small mammals. When the good weather arrived, they gathered at water's edge to fish, hunt for birds, collect eggs, and gather roots and berries. The forest also supplied them with a precious material: birch bark. This was ideal for making various containers, wigwams and, above all, the indispensable canoes. Explorer George Catlin was astonished to see the canoes of the Chippewas "ride upon the water, as light as a cork."

  Photo - Birch bark freight canoe, Mackenzie River, N.W.T.
 

Birch bark freight canoe, Mackenzie River, N.W.T.
©2003 ICN-RCI / Hemera

For their part, the nomads of the western plains truly worshipped the buffalo, for that animal provided them with everything they needed in order to live—with the exception, they said, of water to slake their thirst and poles to construct their tepees. The life of buffalo hunters improved substantially when the horse, introduced by the Spanish in the 16th century, made its appearance on the northern plains in the 18th century. The nomads could then move about more quickly and carry more with them.

Photo - Old totem poles, Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C.  
Old totem poles, Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C.
©2003 ICN-RCI / Hemera
 
 

On the Pacific Coast, Aboriginal peoples enjoyed the bounty of nature. The greatest of all nature's riches was the abundance of salmon. For the Aboriginal peoples, salmon were nothing less than reincarnated human beings who would continue to offer themselves to the fishermen so long as the fishermen returned their bones to the sea. The sea coast of this region provided its human inhabitants with a profusion of fish, sea mammals, water birds, edible seaweed and shellfish. Its forests abounded in priceless resources: wood to build villages and carve boats or totem poles; goat's wool for weaving; and a wide variety of meat, berries, roots and mushrooms to vary the diet.

  Photo - Winter in Churchill, Man.
 

Winter in Churchill, Man.
©2003 ICN-RCI / Hemera

The Inuit of the Arctic occupied vast icy expanses that offered no protection against the elements, no edible vegetation and no building materials. The following excerpt from the poem of an Inuit mother eloquently expresses the precariousness of life in the Arctic: "The snowstorm wails out there... My little boy is sleeping on the ledge... His little stomach is bulging round—is it strange if I start to cry joy?" Yet the Inuit managed to survive in this hostile environment and create a unique culture that assigns a central role to art. At the approach of winter, they headed for the pack ice, where the men hunted seals, harpooning them at their breathing holes. In good weather, they hunted walruses or belugas along the coasts and harvested the eggs of seabirds. Then, when summer was ending, all families went inland to hunt caribou for meat and—more importantly—hides, which were essential for surviving the intense winter cold. In the Arctic, dogs truly earned their reputation as man's best friend. Harnessed to sleds made from whale bones and caribou antlers, they made it much easier for these nomadic peoples to move about.

Related reading... The Life-giving Buffalo

 

 
  Previous page | Page | Next page
Go to top of page Go to top of page
  Français | The Land | The People | The Economy | The State ]
  Date published: 2003-05-26 Important Notices
  Date modified: 2004-09-07
Go to end of page