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This list of place names in Canada of Indigenous origin contains Canadian places whose names originate from the words of the First Nations, Métis, or Inuit, collectively referred to as Indigenous Peoples. When possible, the original word or phrase used by Indigenous Peoples is included, along with its generally believed meaning. Names listed are only those used in English or French, as many places have alternate names in the local native languages, e.g. Alkali Lake, British Columbia is Esket in the Shuswap language; Lytton, British Columbia is Camchin in the Thompson language (often used in English however, as Kumsheen).
The name Canada comes from the word meaning "village" or "settlement" in the Saint-Lawrence Iroquoian [1] language spoken by the inhabitants of Stadacona and the neighbouring region near present-day Quebec City in the 16th century. [2] Another contemporary meaning was "land." [3] Jacques Cartier was first to use the word "Canada" to refer not only to the village of Stadacona, but also to the neighbouring region and to the Saint-Lawrence River.
In other Iroquoian languages, the words for "town" or "village" are similar: the Mohawk use kaná:ta', [4] [5] the Seneca iennekanandaa, and the Onondaga use ganataje. [6]
Provinces and territories whose official names are aboriginal in origin are Yukon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut.
For the scores of BC placenames from the Chinook Jargon, see List of Chinook Jargon place names.
The Blackfoot Confederacy, Niitsitapi, or Siksikaitsitapi, is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Blackfeet people: the Siksika ("Blackfoot"), the Kainai or Blood, and two sections of the Peigan or Piikani – the Northern Piikani (Aapátohsipikáni) and the Southern Piikani. Broader definitions include groups such as the Tsúùtínà (Sarcee) and A'aninin who spoke quite different languages but allied with or joined the Blackfoot Confederacy.
The Slavey are a First Nations group of Indigenous peoples in Canada. They speak the Slavey language, a part of the Athabaskan languages. Part of the Dene people, their homelands are in the Great Slave Lake region, in Canada's Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia, and northwestern Alberta.
The Cypress Hills are a geographical region of hills in southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta, Canada. The hills are part of the Missouri Coteau upland. The hills cover an area of approximately 2,500 km2 (970 sq mi). About 400 km2 (150 sq mi) or 16% of this area is an interprovincial park.
Canadian syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of writing systems used in a number of indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and (formerly) Athabaskan language families. These languages had no formal writing system previously. They are valued for their distinctiveness from the Latin script and for the ease with which literacy can be achieved. For instance, by the late 19th century the Cree had achieved what may have been one of the highest rates of literacy in the world. Syllabics are an abugida, where glyphs represent consonant–vowel pairs, determined by the rotation of the glyphs. They derive from the work of linguist and missionary James Evans.
The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people, also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota, are a First Nations/Native American people originally from the Northern Great Plains of North America.
Albert Lacombe, known as Father Lacombe, was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic missionary who travelled among and evangelized the Cree and also visited the Blackfoot First Nations of northwestern Canada. He is now remembered for having brokered a peace between the Cree and Blackfoot, negotiating construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway through Blackfoot territory, and securing a promise from the Blackfoot leader Crowfoot to refrain from joining the North-West Rebellion of 1885.
A tribal council is an association of First Nations bands in Canada, generally along regional, ethnic or linguistic lines.
First Nations in Alberta are a group of people who live in the Canadian province of Alberta. The First Nations are peoples recognized as Indigenous peoples or Plains Indians in Canada excluding the Inuit and the Métis. According to the 2011 Census, a population of 116,670 Albertans self-identified as First Nations. Specifically there were 96,730 First Nations people with registered Indian Status and 19,945 First Nations people without registered Indian Status. Alberta has the third largest First Nations population among the provinces and territories. From this total population, 47.3% of the population lives on an Indian reserve and the other 52.7% live in urban centres. According to the 2011 Census, the First Nations population in Edmonton totalled at 31,780, which is the second highest for any city in Canada. The First Nations population in Calgary, in reference to the 2011 Census, totalled at 17,040. There are 45 First Nations or "bands" in Alberta, belonging to nine different ethnic groups or "tribes" based on their ancestral languages.
Anthony Henday was one of the first Europeans to explore the interior of what would eventually become western Canada. He ventured farther into the interior of western Canada than any white man had before him. As an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, he travelled across the prairies in the 1750s, journeyed into what is now central Alberta, and possibly arrived at the present site of Red Deer. He camped along the North Saskatchewan River, perhaps on the present site of Rocky Mountain House or Edmonton, and is said to have been the first European to see the Rocky Mountains, if only from a distance.
The Nakoda are an Indigenous people in Western Canada and the United States.
The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows eventually into the Hudson Bay.
Manitou is the spiritual and fundamental life force in the theologies of Algonquian peoples. It is omnipresent and manifests everywhere: organisms, the environment, events, etc. Aashaa monetoo means "good spirit", while otshee monetoo means "bad spirit". When Turtle Island was created, the Great Spirit, Aasha Monetoo, gave the land to the indigenous peoples.
The Beaver Hills, also known as the Beaver Hills Moraine and the Cooking Lake Moraine, are a rolling upland region in Central Alberta, just to the east of Edmonton, the provincial capital. It consists of 1,572 square kilometres (607 sq mi) of "knob and kettle" terrain, containing many glacial moraines and depressions filled with small lakes. The landform lies partly within five different counties, Strathcona, Leduc, Beaver, Lamont and Camrose. The area is relatively undeveloped compared to the surrounding region, and is protected in part by Elk Island National Park, the Cooking Lake–Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area, the Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary, Miquelon Lake Provincial Park and a number of smaller provincial natural areas. Since 2016 Beaver Hills has been a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve.