Long before the arrival of Europeans on North American shores in the late 1400s, the ancestors of our present native peoples had established themselves for centuries in every corner of the country.

Although small in population they had developed rich and varied cultures. These cultures ranged from the semi-sedentary fishers and hunters of the west coast, such as the Haidas with their magnificent totems, to the sedentary Huron farmers of southern Ontario with their villages and sophisticated farming systems.

With little or no immunity to European diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza, many aboriginal peoples died after contact with the Europeans. Mercantile contact with European fur traders changed the Native way of life but it did not reduce them to a state of dependancy.

Native peoples played a powerful role as middle men in the fur trade. Not until the nineteenth century did Aboriginal people lose that key, dominant role. But when they did, they were pushed aside, marginalized, and became dependent on support from Ottawa which they had been guaranteed in a series of treaties signed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With those treaties they ceded their lands and saw their cultures weaken due to half-hearted assimilation policies from Ottawa.

In recent decades the First Nations have rebounded. They have asserted their rights and rediscovered their ancient religion and culture, reminding Canadians that they were the first occupants of this land.