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Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, rights and heritage

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123 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker), around 1884 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K158Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker), nēhiyaw chief

pīhtokahānapiwiyin (Poundmaker, ca. 1842–1886), a nēhiyaw (Plains Cree) chief, sought better terms for his people and called on Canada to fulfil its obligations under Treaty 6. In 1885 he repulsed Lieutenant-Colonel Otter’s attack on his reserve at Cut Knife but restrained his followers; imprisoned as a rebel, he died after his early release.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The National Aboriginal Veterans Monument in Confederation Park, Ottawa, photographed in 2019.
CA-K156Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Indigenous soldiers in the First World War

During the First World War, Indigenous people volunteered in significant numbers, even though many were denied the right to vote; it was the first time Canada’s forces integrated a substantial number of Indigenous men as individual soldiers. As veterans, they were an active force behind the League of Indians of Canada, the first organization to give their communities a national voice.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Abenaki basket makers of Odanak, around 1920 (Musée des Abénakis).
CA-K155Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Abenaki basket-making in Odanak and Wôlinak

Abenaki weavers in Odanak and Wôlinak, Quebec, use black ash splints and sweetgrass to make baskets using skills passed between generations. Basket-making was Odanak’s main source of income from 1870 to 1920 and remains a symbol of Abenaki identity.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Société historique d'Odanak, Musée des Abénakis, Odanak, Québec, Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Prince of Wales Fort at the mouth of the Churchill River, Manitoba, in 2012; a later Hudson’s Bay Company fort, not the 1717 post.
CA-K141Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Thanadelthur, Dene interpreter and peacemaker

Thanadelthur, a young Dene woman and skilled interpreter, guided a Hudson’s Bay Company expedition from York Factory into Dene territory in 1715–1716. Her diplomacy brought peace between the Dene and the Cree and opened direct trade, leading to a post at the Churchill River in 1717; her story is honoured in Dene oral tradition.

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Photo: Peterfitzgerald · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Kahnawà:ke seen from Lachine, Montréal, in 2016.
CA-K140Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Mary Two-Axe Earley and First Nations women’s equality

Mary Two-Axe Earley (1911–1996), a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) woman born in Kahnawà:ke, campaigned against the sex discrimination in section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, which stripped First Nations women of status if they married non-status men. After the Act was changed in 1985, she was the first person to regain her status.

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Photo: Red Castle · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Francis Pegahmagabow in 1945, at a conference in Ottawa, photographed by Marius Barbeau.
CA-K138Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Francis Pegahmagabow, soldier and rights advocate

Francis Pegahmagabow, an Ojibwe Nishnaabe of Wasauksing First Nation, was a highly decorated First World War sniper and scout who received the Military Medal and two bars for bravery. Facing discrimination under the Indian Act after the war, he became a political leader in his community and nationally, fighting for treaty rights from the 1920s to the 1950s.

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Photo: Marius Barbeau · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Fort Anne National Historic Site at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, from a drone in 2023.
CA-K137Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1726

On 4 June 1726, Mi’kmaw, Wəlastəkokewiyik and Peskətəmohkatewey leaders gathered at Annapolis Royal to ratify a treaty with the British Crown. It affirmed peaceful coexistence and was the first treaty between the Crown and these Nations, the basis for all their later treaties.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

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Photo: WayeMason & John Van Gurp · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
A beaded Métis sash and a ceinture fléchée (woven sash) on display at a museum in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in 2024.
CA-K123Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Métis Nation emerged in the historic Northwest

The Métis Nation emerged in the historic Northwest during the fur trade as a distinct Indigenous people with its own culture, traditions, language (Michif) and nationhood. The Métis Nation Homeland includes Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northern United States.

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Photo: Fungus Guy · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
The entrance to the underground Robert-Bourassa generating station, part of the James Bay hydroelectric development, in 2000.
CA-K122Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, 1975

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed on 11 November 1975 by the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee, the Inuit of Nunavik, Canada, Quebec and Hydro-Québec, after Cree and Inuit court challenges to the James Bay hydroelectric project. The Cree Nation Government describes it as the first modern Indigenous land claim agreement and treaty in Canada.

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Photo: Peter Van den Bossche · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
A First Nations community at Bloodvein River on Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2003; a view of the wider region, not the World Heritage property itself.
CA-K120Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Pimachiowin Aki, “the land that gives life”

Pimachiowin Aki, Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) for “the land that gives life,” is a boreal forest in Manitoba and Ontario under Indigenous stewardship. Inscribed in 2018, it is Canada’s first mixed (natural and cultural) World Heritage property and testifies to the Anishinaabe tradition of Ji-ganawendamang Gidakiiminaan (Keeping the Land).

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

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Photo: Timkal · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
The Milk River and hoodoos at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, Alberta, in 2025; it does not show the rock art.
CA-K119Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Writing-on-Stone / Áísínai’pi, a sacred Blackfoot landscape

Writing-on-Stone / Áísínai’pi, in Alberta’s Milk River Valley, is a sacred site where the Blackfoot (Siksikáítsitapi) left engravings and paintings on the sandstone walls. The landscape remains sacred to the Blackfoot and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

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Photo: Nodin Cutfeet · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
A wooded coastal view at SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay, photographed in 2016; the photograph does not show the village’s poles.
CA-K118Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

SG̱ang Gwaay: a Haida village and its poles

SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay (Nan Sdins), on an island at the southern tip of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, bears unique testimony to Haida culture. The 19th-century village keeps the remains of 10 houses and 32 memorial or mortuary poles, and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.

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Photo: Yvrsigmatech · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site, Alberta, photographed in 2017.
CA-K117Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (estipah-skikikini-kots in Blackfoot), in southwestern Alberta, is the biggest, oldest and best-preserved buffalo jump in North America. Plains peoples drove bison over its cliffs for perhaps 5,700 years, until the mid-19th century; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.

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Photo: Thomas Fuhrmann · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Nachvak Fjord in the Torngat Mountains, Labrador, photographed in 2008.
CA-K112Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Torngat Mountains, an Inuit homeland

The subarctic Torngat Mountains of northern Labrador are an Inuit homeland, rich in stories and traditions. Torngat Mountains National Park protects a landscape of glacier-carved fjords and some of Earth’s oldest rocks.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Paul Gierszewski · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
York Factory, Manitoba, photographed in 2017.
CA-K105Economy & trade

York Factory, a fur trade hub for over 250 years

York Factory, a Hudson’s Bay Company depot on Hudson Bay in Manitoba, was a vital fur trade hub for more than 250 years. It served as the gateway to the vast interior for British trade goods, settlers and soldiers, and lies on Treaty 5 territory.

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Photo: Travel Manitoba · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
The church and rectory at Batoche National Historic Site, Saskatchewan, viewed from the cemetery in 2007.
CA-K104Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Batoche and the Northwest Resistance of 1885

Batoche, a Métis settlement on the South Saskatchewan River north of Saskatoon, was the scene of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont’s last stand during the Northwest Resistance of 1885. Parks Canada describes it as a symbol of Métis resilience and cultural renewal.

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Photo: Dave Bonser · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Lava beds in the Nass Valley, British Columbia, photographed in 2017; a landscape in the region, not a depiction of the treaty.
CA-K095Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The Nisg̱a’a Treaty took effect on 11 May 2000

The Nisg̱a’a Treaty, British Columbia’s first modern treaty, took effect on 11 May 2000. It recognizes about 2,000 square kilometres of Nisg̱a’a Lands and was the first treaty in British Columbia to provide constitutional certainty for self-government.

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Photo: Darren Kirby · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
An Orange Shirt Day walk in Edmonton, Alberta, on 30 September 2024.
CA-K094Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: 30 September

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is observed each year on 30 September, honouring Residential School Survivors, their families and communities. It became a federal statutory holiday through Bill C-5, which received royal assent on 3 June 2021; Orange Shirt Day, which began in Williams Lake, British Columbia, in 2013, is observed the same day.

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Photo: Joli Rumi · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
A wood bison in Wood Buffalo National Park, photographed in August 2007.
CA-K091Places & geography

Wood Buffalo, Canada’s largest national park

Wood Buffalo National Park, spanning the Alberta–Northwest Territories border, is the largest national park in Canada. It protects the world’s largest herds of wood bison and vital whooping crane habitat, in the traditional territory of the Dene, Cree and Métis.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Naturedata · Photo licence: CC0 · Credit & context
A modern view of Iqaluit, Nunavut; one place within Inuit Nunangat, not a map of all Inuktut dialects.
CA-K048Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Inuktut includes a rich diversity of dialects

Inuktut is spoken in different dialects across Inuit Nunangat. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s regional overview includes Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut and Inuttitut, reflecting linguistic diversity within the Inuit homeland.

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Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: Quintin Soloviev · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
A residential-school memorial in Vancouver on 30 May 2021; an illustration of commemoration, not the NCTR building or its archival collection.
CA-K032Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The NCTR preserves the TRC’s records

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation officially opened in 2015. Statements, documents and other materials gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission became a central part of its work of preserving residential school history.

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Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: GoToVan · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
A residential-school memorial in Vancouver on 30 May 2021; an act of commemoration, not a historical residential-school scene.
CA-K029Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

The residential school system

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation reports that more than 150,000 children attended Indian Residential Schools. The system separated Indigenous children from their families and cultures and caused lasting harm.

Factual accuracy review: No recorded challenge

Contributor: Citizen.ca

Verified against cited sourcesVerified on 2026-10-26↗
Photo: GoToVan · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context