2.35 - Northern North America

Summary

Introduction

Canada has been described as a Métis (mixed blood) society, shaped from four centuries of interaction with indigenous populations. When Europeans arrived, the vast Canadian land was not a wilderness uninhabited by people, but was alive with groups who had learned over countless generations to live in the varied Canadian environments ranging from the Atlantic coast and the eastern woodlands to the central plains and northwest coast rainforest, and to the Sub-Arctic and Arctic (Map 2.35.1). The traditions that had been initiated by earlier Paleoindian and Archaic peoples had culminated in population growth and territorial expansion resulting in more than two million people by the late 16th century. Immigrant Europeans across Canada married into the indigenous world not only to improve their social and political standing but also simply to survive the challenging conditions of life to which Canadian indigenous populations were adapted (Saul 2008: 8–16).

While our initial understanding of the archaeological record of those adaptations can be traced to the establishment of learned societies in the mid-19th century, Canada lagged far behind other Western countries in the institution of professional academic programmes in archaeology. It was not until 1946, for example, that the first serious programme in archaeology was established at the University of Toronto, which was followed by others in the 1950s and 1960s throughout Canada. Earlier-20th-century work was undertaken in most provinces and territories by the National Museum of Canada.