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Indigenous peoples in Canada |
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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 Saskatchewan River is a major river in Canada. It stretches about 550 kilometres (340 mi) from where it is formed by the joining together of the North Saskatchewan River and South Saskatchewan River just east of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, to Lake Winnipeg. It flows roughly eastward across Saskatchewan and Manitoba to empty into Lake Winnipeg. Through its tributaries the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan, its watershed encompasses much of the prairie regions of Canada, stretching westward to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta and north-western Montana in the United States.
Lake Athabasca is in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake is 26% in Alberta and 74% in Saskatchewan.
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.
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.
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 48 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 westward 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 Homathko River is one of the major rivers of the southern Coast Mountains of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is one of the few rivers that penetrates the range from the interior Chilcotin Country to the coastal inlets of the Pacific Ocean. The Homathko River reaches the sea at the head of Bute Inlet, just west of the mouth of the Southgate River.
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.
Driedmeat Lake is a long ribbon lake in Alberta; part of the Battle River system. Its northern end is located approximately 10 km (6.2 mi) south of the city of Camrose. The city draws its water supply from the lake. It was originally created by a glacial meltwater channel, which carved the surrounding valley. In the valley and around it, Saskatoon berries, an ingredient of pemmican, grow and are endemic in the area.
The Tuya River is a major tributary of the Stikine River in northwest part of the province of British Columbia, Canada. From its source at High Tuya Lake in Tuya Mountains Provincial Park just south of Ash Mountain, the highest peak of the Tuya Range, the Tuya River flows south about 200 km (120 mi) to meet the Stikine River in the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. The Tuya River's main tributary is the Little Tuya River. The Tuya River divides the Tanzilla Plateau on the east from the Kawdy Plateau, to the northwest, and the Nahlin Plateau, to the southwest. All three are considered sub-plateaus of the Stikine Plateau. The Tuya River's watershed covers 3,575 km2 (1,380 sq mi), and its mean annual discharge is estimated at 36.9 m3/s (1,300 cu ft/s). The mouth of the Tuya River is located about 24 km (15 mi) northeast of Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, about 67 km (42 mi) southwest of Dease Lake, British Columbia, and about 210 km (130 mi) east of Juneau, Alaska. The Tuya River's watershed's land cover is classified as 35.7% shrubland, 31.4% conifer forest, 14.0% mixed forest, 7.2% herbaceous, and small amounts of other cover.
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 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.
The Iron Confederacy or Iron Confederation was a political and military alliance of Plains Indians of what is now Western Canada and the northern United States. This confederacy included various individual bands that formed political, hunting and military alliances in defense against common enemies. The ethnic groups that made up the Confederacy were the branches of the Cree that moved onto the Great Plains around 1740, the Saulteaux, the Nakoda or Stoney people also called Pwat or Assiniboine, and the Métis and Haudenosaunee. The Confederacy rose to predominance on the northern Plains during the height of the North American fur trade when they operated as middlemen controlling the flow of European goods, particularly guns and ammunition, to other Indigenous nations, and the flow of furs to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and North West Company (NWC) trading posts. Its peoples later also played a major part in the bison (buffalo) hunt, and the pemmican trade. The decline of the fur trade and the collapse of the bison herds sapped the power of the Confederacy after the 1860s, and it could no longer act as a barrier to U.S. and Canadian expansion.