Canada before Europeans

More than 10,000 years

Archaeologists have found sites across Canada, from Nova Scotia to northern British Columbia, that are about 10,000 to 13,000 years old, and some sites are argued to be older. "More than ten thousand years" is a cautious floor, not the whole story. The oral histories of many nations say they have been here since time immemorial.

On a timeline, the European arrival sits at the far right end. Everything before it, almost the whole bar, is Indigenous history.

How many people, and how many nations?

Nobody took a census, so numbers are estimates. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996) called about 500,000 people around 1500 the most widely accepted figure, while noting many see it as too low. Published estimates range from about 200,000 to 2 million.

Those people belonged to many nations, not one group. Each had its own language, its own laws and its own territory.

Living from the land: five regions

Scholars group Canada's First Peoples into six culture areas. The video shows five of them:

• Arctic: the Thule people, ancestors of the Inuit, spread across the Canadian Arctic around 1000 to 1300 CE. They hunted seals and whales, using kayaks and larger boats.
• Pacific coast (Northwest Coast): nations like the Haida fished for salmon and carved giant canoes from cedar trees.
• Northern forest (Subarctic): Cree and Dene peoples hunted caribou and moose across the huge boreal forest.
• Prairies (Plains): the Blackfoot hunted bison.
• Great Lakes (Eastern Woodlands): the Wendat (Huron) lived in longhouse villages in what is now southern Ontario and farmed corn, beans and squash.

The sixth area, the Plateau of interior British Columbia, and the Atlantic coast (home to the Mi'kmaq and the Beothuk) are on the map too.

Try it yourself

Look up whose traditional territory you live on, or a Canadian city you know. Then find which culture area it belongs to on the map: Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Plains or Eastern Woodlands.

Good to know

• "More than ten thousand years" is a cautious floor: sites date to roughly 10,000 to 13,000 years ago, and some older dates are debated.
• 500,000 is the most widely accepted estimate for around 1500, but many see it as conservative; estimates run from about 200,000 to 2 million.
• "Around 1500" is approximate.
• The Inuit's direct ancestors, the Thule, spread across the Canadian Arctic around 1000 to 1300 CE.
• St. Lawrence Iroquoians also farmed, along the St. Lawrence River.
• Culture areas are a scholars' grouping, not how peoples described themselves.