As far as Canada’s Aboriginal people are concerned, North America is a place called Turtle Island, which came into being after the Great Flood—from a tiny pawful of mud dredged up from the deep by a muskrat (or a west coast otter), mud that a turtle volunteered to carry on its back to help make a new Earth. Today, some 630 distinct First Nations communities in Canada, speaking more than 60 languages, tell some version of the Turtle Island story. But all agree the spiritual centre of Turtle Island lies in what is now southeastern Manitoba’s Whiteshell Provincial Park, where ancient stone petroforms hidden in forests and on remote granite cliffs portray sacred animals and symbols.

So, who are Canada’s Aboriginal people? Here’s a brief primer.

Fast-growing First Nations
Indigenous First Nations and Northern Inuit people have lived in North America for thousands of years. Some say the Haida colonized what’s now British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) as long as 10,000 years ago. Today, about 1.2 million Canadians claim some Aboriginal ancestry; the First Nations are the most rapidly growing—and youngest—segment of Canada’s population (almost half are under 25).

In the north, 25% of the Yukon’s people, 50% of the Northwest Territories’ and 85% of Nunavut’s are Aboriginal or Inuit. Nunavut—“Our Land” in Inkutitut—itself is Canada’s newest territory, carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999 as a homeland for Canada’s Inuit.

Less than 100 years ago, virtually all First Nations people (except for Northerners and west coast Aboriginals, who never signed treaties with the British) lived on reserves—land set aside for them by treaty. There are 2,300-plus such reserves across most of Canada. But with mass migration in recent years to urban centres, under 47% of Canada’s Aboriginal people still live “on-reserve.” There are a few reserves (or self-governing territories) in cities—the Opawikoscikan Reserve in Prince Albert, SK, Wendake in Québec City, QC and Edmonton, AB’s Stony Plain 135. Canada’s largest reserve, Six Nations of the Grand River, counts more than 21,000 residents and encompasses about ten towns and communities in southern Ontario.

Different, yet so alike
As with the Turtle Island legend, First Nations cultural traditions vary, but bear uncanny similarities from the west coast to the Maritimes. For example, one always enters a tipi or longhouse on the left outside, circling round to the right inside.

Then there are the Métis people of western Canada, descendants of marriages between 17th- and 18th-century native people and Europeans—mostly French or Scottish. The Métis blend native tradition with inherited joie de vivre, and their own unique histories as voyageurs and trappers. They’ve developed a culture that revolves around the joy of music—especially fiddling and a unique form of a jig (a type of dance). Many still today live in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

For most of the 20th century, First Nations traditional cultural practices such as powwows and potlatches were flat-out banned. But in the past few decades, those traditions have resurfaced and flourished as Canada’s First Nations have stepped forward to reclaim their history and heritage. The world’s first Aboriginal television network, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), launched in September 1999, and is headquartered in Winnipeg, MB. National Aboriginal Day, on June 21, began in 1996 and formally recognizes the First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.

And powwows are back in vogue across the country. Big-time.

Here’s a 2010 powwow sampling:

• June 18-20: 13th Annual Noongam Traditional Powwow, Ottawa, ON
• June 21-22: National Aboriginal Day & Powwow, Wanuskewin Heritage Park, Saskatoon, SK
• July 1-4: Miawpukek First Nation’s Powwow, Conne River, NL
• July 30-Aug. 1: Kamloopa Powwow, Kamloops, BC
• July 31, Aug. 1-2: Wikwemikong 50th Cultural Festival (eastern Canada's biggest and oldest Aboriginal celebration and one of the major celebrations of Turtle Island), Manitoulin Island, ON
• Sept. 18-19: Native Harvest Festival & Powwow, Museum of Ontario Archaeology, London, ON
• Nov. 3-7: International Competition Powwow, Manito Ahbee Festival, Winnipeg, MB
• Nov. 26-28: Canadian Aboriginal Festival, Hamilton, ON
   

SACRED AND HISTORIC PLACES, AND WHERE TO LEARN MORE:

Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Wanuskewin Heritage Park
Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site
Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre
Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre
Fort Témiscamingue National Historic Site
Traditional Huron Site ONHOÜA CHETEK8E
Xá:ytem Longhouse Interpretive Centre
Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park
Lawson Iroquoian Village
Petroglyphs Provincial Park

First Nations in Canada (by language roots):
Nakoda, Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Chipewyan, Saulteaux, Northern Peigan, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Dakota, Sioux, Algonquin, Huron, Ojibwe or Ojibway (also called Chippewa in some regions), Odawa, Potawatomi, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, Oji-Cree, Haida, Tsimshian, Wakashan, Athapaskan, Tlingit, Salish (Coast and Interior), Ktunaxa.

Innu, Inuvialuit and Inuit peoples:
Ehdiitat Gwich’in, Gwichya Gwich’in, Sahtu Dene, Tetlit Gwich’in, Nihtat Gwich’in, Tlicho, Yellowknives, Dehcho, Tagish, Tlingit, Northern and Southern Tutchone, Han.

Extinct: Beothuk (Newfoundland and Labrador)

www.afn.ca/
www.itk.ca/
www.metisnation.ca/
www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/index-eng.asp