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Ditidaht

Ditidaht (meaning “people along the way” or “people along the coast” in their language) is a Nuu-chah-nulth nation residing on the west coast of Vancouver Island. At present, the main permanently occupied Ditidaht village is situated in Malachan, a settlement that lies at the head of Nitinat Lake. As of October 2021, the federal government counts 775 registered members of the Ditidaht nation.

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Indigenous Music Awards

The Indigenous Music Awards (formerly the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards) were founded by Catherine Cornelius and Ron Robert in 1999 to recognize, honour, and celebrate the breadth of Aboriginal music making in Canada.

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Inuit Vocal Games

Inuit vocal games describe central Canadian Arctic practices that are both musical and ludic (spontaneous or playful). According to regional differences, these can be divided into several genres with different names.

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Plains Indigenous Peoples in Canada

The Plains cultural area is a vast territory that extends from southern Manitoba and the Mississippi River westward to the Rocky Mountains, and from the North Saskatchewan River south into Texas. The term “Plains peoples” describes a number of different and unique Indigenous nations, including the Siksika, Cree, Ojibwe, Assiniboine (Nakota) and Dakota.

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Atikamekw

Following various social upheavals linked to epidemics at the time of contact and during the violent Iroquois Wars in the mid-17th century in these regions, a complete reorganization took place among nomadic hunters in Québec, and various groups, hitherto distinct, began to band together.

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SchoolNet

SchoolNet was an educational project launched in 1993 by federal, provincial and territorial governments, educational organizations and industry partners. Their goals were to link Canadian schools and libraries (particularly those in remote areas) via the Internet and to foster the creation of a Canadian educational website in English and French.

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Peter Bostonais Pangman

Peter (or Pierre) Bostonais Pangman, Métis leader, bison hunter (born 20 October 1791 in the North Saskatchewan River Valley area, present-day AB; died 4 March 1850 in St. François Xavier, present-day MB). Peter Bostonais Pangman was a skilled hunter who helped provide much-needed bison meat to the Red River Colony. He was actively involved in the Pemmican Wars and events surrounding the Battle of Seven Oaks. As part of the Pembina fur trade, Pangman was a key figure who rallied and inspired the Red River Valley Métis to see and express themselves with an identity separate from surrounding Indigenous peoples. The name Bostonais is variously spelled Bastonnais and Bostonnais.

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Inuktitut Words for Snow and Ice

​It is often said that the Inuit have dozens of words to refer to snow and ice. Anthropologist John Steckley, in his book White Lies about the Inuit (2007), notes that many often cite 52 as the number of different terms in Inuktitut. This belief in a high number of words for snow and ice has been sharply criticized by a large number of linguists and anthropologists.

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Tanya Tagaq

Tanya Tagaq Gillis, CM, throat singer, experimental musician, painter, novelist (born 5 May 1975 in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut). An experimental artist who has achieved a level of mainstream crossover success, Tanya Tagaq blends Inuit throat singing (traditionally done as a duet) with electronic, classical, punk and rock music. The New Yorker characterized Tagaq’s voice as, “guttural heaves, juddering howls and murderous shrieks,” and praised her work for its “fearless lack of inhibition, technical skill and mastery of tradition.”  A Juno Award, Canadian Aboriginal Music Award and Polaris Music Prize winner, Tagaq is part of what has been called the “Indigenous Music Renaissance” — an innovative new generation of Indigenous artists in Canada. She is also an acclaimed author and a Member of the Order of Canada.

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Cayuga

The Cayuga (also known as Guyohkohnyo and Gayogohó:no', meaning “People of the Pipe” or “People of the Great Swamp”) are Indigenous peoples who have traditionally occupied territories along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence River and south into the Finger Lakes district of New York State. The Cayuga are one of six First Nations that make up the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

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McIvor Case

The McIvor v. Canada case was about gender discrimination in section 6 of the 1985 Indian Act, which deals with Indian status. Sharon McIvor — a woman who regained status rights after the passing of Bill C-31 in 1985 — was not able to pass on those rights to her descendants in the same way that a man with status could. In her case against the federal government, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that section 6 did, in fact, deny McIvor’s equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In response to this case, the federal government introduced new legislation (Bill C-3) in 2011 to counter gender discrimination in the Indian Act.

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Eenoolooapik

Eenoolooapik, also known as Bobbie, Inuk traveller, guide (born circa 1820 in Qimisuk [or Qimmiqsut], Cumberland Sound, NT; died in 1847 in Cumberland Sound, NU). Eenoolooapik provided British whaling captain William Penny with a map of Cumberland Sound that led to the rediscovery of that area 255 years after English explorer John Davis first saw it. The geographic information Eenoolooapik provided to whalers led to years of permanent whaling camps in Cumberland Sound.

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Shuta Got'ine (Mountain)

The Shuta Got'ine are an Indigenous group living on the Mackenzie Mountain slopes down to the Mackenzie River. Historically, various small groups using the eastern slopes of the mountain range have been called Mountain and have traded at all the posts between Fort Liard and Fort Good Hope.

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Indigenous Women and the Franchise

The context for Indigenous women and the franchise has been framed by colonialism as much as by gender discrimination. Indigenous women (First NationsMétis, and Inuit) have gained the right to vote at different times in Canadian history. The process has been connected to enfranchisement — both voluntary and involuntary — which means that Indigenous women were afforded political participation and Canadian citizenship rights at the cost of Indigenous rights (see Indigenous Suffrage).

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Nuxalk (Bella Coola)

The Nuxalk are an Indigenous people in Canada. Their traditional territories are in and around Bella Coola, British Columbia. The term "Bella Coola" once referred collectively to the Nuxalk, Talio, Kimsquit and some Kwatna who inhabited villages around North Bentinck Arm and the Bella Coola Valley, South Bentinck Arm, Dean Channel and Kwatna Inlet. Since the late 1970s, the Nuxalk have called themselves the Nuxalk Nation, derived from the term that in earlier times referred exclusively to the people of the Bella Coola Valley. In 2020, the Government of Canada reported the registered population of Nuxalk was 1,786, with 912 people living on reserve. (See also First Nations and Northwest Coast Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

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Hesquiaht

The Hesquiaht are Indigenous people residing on the west coast of Vancouver Island. “Hesquiaht” is an English version of the Nuu-chah-nulth word, heish-heish-a, which means, “to tear asunder with the teeth.” This refers to the technique of stripping herring spawn away from eel grass, which grew near Hesquiaht territory. Part of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, the Hesquiaht number 756 registered members, as of 2021.

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Nuchatlaht

The Nuchatlaht (“people of the mountain”) are a Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation residing on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. According to the federal government, the Nuchatlaht numbered 167 registered members, as of October 2021.