Canadian Indigenous

Canada's Indigenous peoples encompass hundreds of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities spanning the world's second-largest country. From the monumental cedar art of the Haida on the Pacific coast to the Inuit of the Arctic and the Mi'kmaq of the Atlantic Maritimes, these cultures developed sophisticated relationships with radically different environments. Their oral traditions encode thousands of years of ecological knowledge, astronomical observation, and spiritual geography. Many communities maintain living ceremonial traditions despite centuries of colonial disruption, including the devastating residential school system that operated from the 1880s through 1996.