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Native People: Subarctic

Major Languages and Tribal Groups
Most peoples of the Eastern Subarctic speak languages of the Algonquian family; those of the Western Subarctic, Athapaskan languages. Northern Subarctic Algonquians, including the ATTIKAMEK and INNU (MONTAGNAIS-NASKAPI) of Québec and Labrador, speak dialects of the Cree language, and Algonquians to the south of them speak dialects of Ojibwa. The BEOTHUK of Newfoundland spoke a language of uncertain affinity. Linguists have identified more than 20 different Northern Athapaskan languages within the Western Subarctic, including Alaska (see NATIVE PEOPLE, LANGUAGES).

Montagnais Indians
Constructing a birchbark canoe, in northern Québec, circa 1863 (photo attributed to Alexander Henderson, courtesy Library and Archives Canada/PA-148587).

Historical Summary
Contact with Europeans changed Subarctic cultures profoundly. The effects of contact differed according to time and place. Early contact during the 17th century caused extensive migration of Subarctic people such as the CREE and brought about new and different intertribal relationships. The 19th century was characterized by direct contact between native people and Europeans engaged in the FUR TRADE. Different tribes experienced the effects of contact with greater or lesser severity. In Newfoundland, loss of habitat and killing by whites led to complete extinction of the native Beothuk by 1829.

By contrast, the neighbouring Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi) developed a trapping economy and systematic trade relations with Europeans. They adapted successfully to contact conditions because Europeans needed them to trap furs and had no immediate use for their hunting territories. Other native groups such as the Cree became fur-trade middlemen between the HUDSON'S BAY CO and Subarctic Athapaskans to the west. Following Alexander MACKENZIE's voyages of exploration along the Peace and Mackenzie rivers beginning in 1789, the rival NORTH WEST CO established trading posts that gave its traders direct contact with the Athapaskans. In 1821 these posts were taken over by the HBC, which has remained an important influence in the area.

The 20th century has increasingly seen a period of resource development in the North and the movement of non-natives into the Subarctic. These conditions have motivated contemporary Subarctic natives to press for LAND CLAIMS settlements and increased control over their own affairs.

Traditional Culture
All natives of the Subarctic lived by hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering wild plants. Indigenous farming was not practical within their territory (crops successfully grown in the North today did not reach contiguous areas until after European contact). Men did most of the big-game hunting, while women snared hare, fished, cut and dried meat, and processed hides. Some hunting techniques such as drives and the construction and operation of corrals involved most adult members of a BAND.

Since game animals were thinly distributed over vast territories in the boreal forest, or were available only locally or seasonally, Subarctic human population densities were among the lowest in the world. Some scholars estimate that the entire area may have supported as few as 60 000 people, although others believe that before the introduction of European diseases, populations could have been larger.

Subarctic natives typically lived in local bands of 25-30 people. Each band moved frequently from one place to another within a well-defined territory as game supplies changed from season to season and from year to year. A group's size and the nature of its annual economic cycle were strongly influenced by the availability of local resources. The TUTCHONE, Athapaskans of the Yukon Plateau, and others west of the Rocky Mountains, gathered along rivers during the summer to catch and dry salmon. The CHIPEWYAN, Athapaskans living north of Lake Athabasca, moved to the edge of the barren grounds to follow the caribou herds. Innu spent their summers near the Atlantic, Gulf of St Lawrence or James Bay coasts and their winters inland.

A single band often did not have exclusive access to its territory since adjacent bands frequently obtained hunting rights, especially if they faced food scarcity, or certain peripheral areas were used in common. However, rich sites such as lakes or rivers where fish could be taken regularly were usually exploited by the same band year after year. During the summer, when food was abundant, several local bands often resided together.

Most Subarctic bands did not have formal chiefs before European contact. People aligned themselves with persons who manifested leadership abilities and took the initiative for undertaking specific tasks such as trading, war or communal hunting, including the necessary prior preparations. Aside from the prestige and respect this brought them, their authority did not generally extend beyond these tasks. White fur traders, however, attempted to establish chiefs and to endow them with considerable power, in order to have better control of the native population tied to the trading post.

Most adult men and women had a part in making decisions that affected the band. Families or individuals who did not agree with a particular decision were free to join another band or camp, or to act on their own for a time. Subarctic people were noted for the value they placed on personal autonomy as well as for the flexibility of their social organization. These characteristics helped them respond to the opportunities and limitations of their environment.

Ties of kinship, reckoned primarily matrilineally among Pacific drainage Athapaskans, bilaterally among those of the Mackenzie drainage, and both bilaterally and patrilineally among the Algonquian speakers, joined people together. Normally, people who had regular contacts used kinship terms, in part structured according to generation (eg, the eldest people become grandfather or grandmother), to address and refer to one another. Kinship relations often determined membership in groups and regulated marriages. In addition, tribes west of the Mackenzie River were organized into clans, and also in some cases by dual divisions (moieties) similar to those of West Coast tribes. These divisions served primarily to ensure hospitality and protection to clan members who might be visiting from other camps or tribes, to fulfil certain largely ceremonial obligations to the opposite division (eg, cremation and/or burial of the dead and reciprocal feasts) and to regulate marriage through the requirement of clan exogamy.

Since their food quest necessitated mobility, natives of the Subarctic had limited material possessions. They travelled light and preferred to make heavier tools and implements as they were needed rather than carry them from place to place. Success in hunting depended on accurate knowledge of animal behaviour. Children were taught to be self-reliant, observant and resourceful. They were expected to learn the habits of game animals and to find their way through large areas of difficult terrain. They were assisted in these skills by listening to long hours of practical narrative accounts and mythological tales and by learning special trapping and hunting songs and innumerable riddles. Those who were successful in hunting were acknowledged to have gained the respect and trust of the animals.

Northern forest natives made summer MOCCASINS, leggings, shirts and coats of soft tanned hides from which the hair had been removed by scraping after treating the fresh hide with the animal's brains. Unique among the Pacific drainage Athapaskans was the short V-tailed summer slipover caribou skin tunic, highly ornamented with dyed porcupine quills, dentalium and beads made from seeds (later glass, trade beads). This exquisite shirt was sometimes worn with leggings with moccasins attached. More generally, Subarctic natives wore relatively light clothing and built fires whenever they stopped. Winter sleeping robes were made of rabbit skins cut into strips, twisted and woven together.

Hunting implements included bows, various types of arrows, a variety of ingenious traps, snares, deadfalls, and such devices as the caribou drift fence and pound. People caught fish with dip and gill nets, traps, spears, and hook and line. They dried berries in the fall or stored them in baskets in pits in the ground. Often the berries were mixed with fat and fish in the far northwest, or were mixed with pounded dried meat and grease to make PEMMICAN. Women were skilled in preparing meat for drying, hide tanning and sewing, making cooking and storage containers of skins, birchbark or coiled spruce root basketry, and making fishnets from willow baste or babiche.

Men made SNOWSHOES, TOBOGGANS, CANOES, sleds and hunting implements. Survival depended on being able to travel long distances. Snowshoes were essential for winter travel. Heavy loads were transported on toboggans and, in the far northwest, sleds were pulled both by dogs and people. Aboriginally, few dogs were available for traction. During the summer, people and their belongings were moved along rivers and lakes by canoe.

Because of their mobile existence, northern forest people built shelters constructed of easily transported skin covers and of locally available materials such as bark. Dwellings varied considerably depending on local materials and traditions, but in all areas they were designed to be heated and lit by a single fire. They did not usually accommodate more than 2 families. Among the northern OJIBWA, dwellings were ridge pole or conical lodges also covered with birchbark. Many of the Arctic drainage Athapaskans lived in conical shelters covered with hides, similar to the Plains tipi. Among the GWICH'IN and HAN of the Yukon, as well as in northern Alaska, the conical tent was replaced by a domed or hemispherical one. Double lean-to structures covered with hides and brush also were used in the Arctic (Mackenzie) drainage and the northwestern mountain and plateau region.

At fishing camps in the Cordillera there were unchinked "smokehouses" that resembled roughly built log cabins. In order to provide added warmth in winter dwellings, the hair was left on the hide coverings of conical and domed tents which, although bulky, nevertheless were portable. Some Athapaskans of the Mackenzie District and Cordillera as well as Indians of the eastern Subarctic wintered in conical log structures chinked with moss and partially covered with dirt and snow. The Han near Dawson, as well as many Alaskan groups, built rectangular pit houses that were heavily banked with turf to withstand the cold, while far to the south in BC, groups such as the CHILCOTIN made pit houses similar to those used in the Plateau.

Considerable effort was taken to cache food and equipment not needed for the season at hand, in specially prepared pits, strong cribbed and conical structures and cairns, or on racks and platforms in trees.

Myths and legends taught about a time when animals had great power and could assume human form. Many Subarctic people tell stories about a "culture hero," the first person to become powerful. For them, power and knowledge were one. They said someone with power "knows something." The culture hero demonstrated the personal knowledge and self-reliance that were recognized as important survival skills, and could outwit evil medicine persons and overcome dangerous animals of the myth time, and thus make the world a safer place in which humans could live. The Algonquian culture's hero and trickster figures are the Nanabush and Wisahkecahk. The Athapaskan culture hero goes by many names but is often associated with migratory waterbirds and the sun, both of whom are seen to fly through the heavens. Beliefs about the interdependence of people and nature embodied in myth helped Subarctic natives interpret their environment.

Religious leaders were people who used their powers for the benefit of others, though to some people they sometimes used their power for evil. Among many Algonquians, these SHAMANS, or medicine people, conducted the SHAKING TENT ceremony in which distant spirits of people or animals were conjured for curing and prophecy in a special tipi. Elsewhere, shamans performed under a blanket or dressed in a special manner as a signal of their office. Western Athapaskan medicine men and women charged high prices for their services and asserted prerogatives or took liberties among their people, for which reason some of them were feared as well as respected. Among the Innu, certain men and women told about the trail ahead by scapulamancy, a form of divination done by interpreting the pattern of cracks on a caribou shoulder blade heated by fire.

The BEAVER of the Peace River region had prophets called Dreamers - people who had experienced death and flown like swans to a spirit land beyond the sky. They were healers and leaders in religious dances based on songs they brought back from their journeys to heaven. Like many other Subarctic people, they sang to the accompaniment of single-headed hand drums. Most people, however, had some degree of medicine power. In addition, there was a body of belief and practices, proscriptions (taboos), prescriptions and minor rituals which existed apart from shamanism, divination and curing. Among these customs were the special observances taken prior to and after killing animals.

Belt Loom and Tumpline
The belt loom was used by the Subarctic people for weaving. The tumpline across the forehead helped support heavy loads (artwork by Gordon Miller).

Migratory Caribou Hunters
The Chipewyans followed the caribou each spring from the forests to the treeless barren lands (courtesy Lazare and Parker/National Wildlife Federation).

Animal Snare
When an animal put its head through the noose, it tripped the snare. The lower drawing shows how the skins were stretched over a form and scraped with a bone tool (artwork by Gordon Miller).

Naskapi Coat
The elaborate designs of this coat may reflect influences of European textiles (courtesy Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford).

Culture Change
Contact with Europeans presented a challenge to native peoples of the Subarctic. Many quickly became dependent on trade goods such as guns, knives, axes, cooking pots and clothing, and eventually food, since they turned from harvesting animals for food and skins to trapping those species desired in European markets. Bands moved to within travelling distance of trading posts, and the traders endeavoured to control the natives. Trading chiefs who could negotiate with the Europeans became as important as the earlier hunt leaders.

The fur trade had a considerable impact on Subarctic ecology. Many species of game and fur-bearing animals were depleted. European diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, measles and influenza killed large numbers of people (see NATIVE PEOPLE, HEALTH). Other people died of starvation during periods of disease and game scarcity.

Native people adopted many elements of CHRISTIANITY but also retained many of their own spiritual traditions, sometimes blending the two. The ability to assimilate new techniques and ideas is a typical attribute of the Subarctic native culture.

In modern times, large-scale resource development and settlement of the North by large numbers of outsiders have threatened the native economy of trapping and subsistence hunting. In 1975 the Grand Council of the Cree signed the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement accepting compensation for social and ecological impacts of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project (see JAMES BAY AND NORTHERN QUÉBEC AGREEMENT). Many Cree continued to hunt and trap on their land, using government entitlements to subsidize the cost of modern transportation and communication systems. Natives of the western Subarctic in the District of Mackenzie, organized politically in the DENE NATION, are seeking SELF-GOVERNMENT within the Canadian national context.

Author ROBIN RIDINGTON

Links to Other Sites
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre
Explore the history, culture, and ecology of Canada's North at the website for the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Check out "Inuvialuit Place Names" for interactive maps and interesting historical details about numerous sites throughout this vast region.

Bone Snow Knives and Tin Oil Lamps
View a collection of traditional tools and household articles representing various First Nation's cultures at this Virtual Museum website.

Lessons from the Land: Idaa Trail
Take a virtual tour along the Idaa Trail, a traditional canoe route of the Tåîchô (Dogrib) people in the Northwest Territories. Click on the names along the trail to learn about the history of each site. Also check the Teacher's Guide for more information. From the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife.

Legends Project
Listen to dramatizations of oral histories, including ancient legends and myths, that Inuit and First Nations elders would have shared during family gatherings and activities in their communities. The series of recordings on this website were originally broadcast on the CBC Radio 1 program “Ideas.”

Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples
The website for the "Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples." Click on the links for feature articles about Canada's many multicultural communities, access to their extensive digital archives collection, learning modules, and much more. From "Multicultural Canada."

Map of Amerindian and Inuit communities
A detailed interactive map of Amerindian and Inuit communities in Québec. From the Secrétariat Aux Affaires Autochtones du Québec.

Languages of Canada
A comprehensive online database of languages currently in use in Canada. Also provides details about extinct languages. Check out the "language maps" for more information. Based on "Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition." From SIL International, a US website.

FirstVoices Language Archive
A website devoted to Canada's indigenous languages. Features program information, multimedia dictionaries, and related resources. Produced by The First Peoples' Cultural Foundation.

Tipatshimuna
Discover the heritage and traditions of the Innu through their stories and material culture. A Virtual Museum Canada website.

An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes
A fascinating Parks Canada research report about incorporating traditional Aboriginal values and spiritual views of the natural world into the process of developing national historic site designations.

Four Directions Teachings
Elders and traditional teachers representing the Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibwe, Mohawk, and Mi’kmaq share teachings about their culture. Animated graphics visualize each of the oral teachings. This website also provides biographies of participants, transcripts, and extensive learning resources for students and their teachers. In English with French subtitles.

Hunters at the Margin
Read the Introduction to "Hunters at the Margin," a book that focuses on issues concerning early efforts at wildlife management in Canada. From the website for University of British Columbia Press.

Emile Petitot, Arctic Explorer and Missionary
A brief synopsis of the film "Emile Petitot, Arctic Explorer and Missionary." From the website for Shenandoah Films in the US.

Drum Songs
A synopsis and excerpts from "Drum Songs," a book that examines important moments in the history of the Dene Nation.