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Nations Previews |
Ten
Thousand Years of First Nations Culture
Reduced to the most general of terms,
the history of the First Nations in
the Lake Ontario region is the history
of the Iroquoian culture. But with just
a few exceptions, the shoreline of the
Lake itself was not the cradle of aboriginal
civilization. Most native population
centres developed inland, in the shelter
of the smaller lakes, rivers and streams.
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Lake
Ontario
Lake
of the Woods
Great
Slave Lake
Bras
d’Or Lake
Lake
Winnipeg |
Half
the Earth
During the 1400’s, advances
in the navigational technology
used by sea-faring royal merchant
and colonial army ships helped
to enable cross-Atlantic voyages
into previously uncharted seas.
The suddenly round world became
rapidly more accessible by sea.
Certainly, Vikings had crossed
the Atlantic earlier (and they
had left.) Also, since some long
ago, pre-glacial time, many thousands
of people ranged across North,
Central and South America.
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The
Cree: Provisioners of Trade
Known originally to the
French as the "Kristinaux,"
the Algonkian-speaking Cree made
their traditional home in the
lands surrounding James Bay and
the western shores of Hudson Bay.
As the fur trade expanded, however,
the Cree moved west to the northern
basin of Lake Winnipeg and south
to Lake Nipigon and Lake Superior.
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François
Beaulieu, Legend of the Great
Slave Métis
Tribal chief, Arctic guide, interpreter,
fur trader, salt merchant, devout
Roman Catholic, vicious enemy,
multiple murderer, patriarch and
centenarian – François
Beaulieu lived a life of contrasts
and extremes.
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The Sea-Going Canoes of the Mi’kmaq
The Mi’kmaq were intrepid
paddlers, braving ocean waves
to travel from mainland Nova Scotia
to Cape Breton, Prince Edward
Island and possibly as far as
Newfoundland. Their humped-back
birchbark canoe design featured
an elevated gunwale (raised ends
and sides that curved upward in
the middle), providing stability
in rough water, as well as navigability
in shallow streams and rapids.
Sails were added during the 1600’s,
and post-contact Mi’kmaq
were quick to adapt to the maneuverable
“shallops” (small
fishing boats) of European fishermen.
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