First Nations, Inuit, and Metis are the people who have always lived in Canada. According to the 2011 census, there were 1,400,685 Canadians who said they were indigenous. This is 4.3% of the country’s total population.
Today, it’s hard for many indigenous communities to get along with the Canadian government. This is mainly because indigenous people were mistreated in government-run residential schools for many years. The last one didn’t close until 1996.
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1. Métis
The Métis can trace their roots back to Native Americans and the Europeans who came to North America. As of 2011, they were said to have about 451,795 people, but no one knows how many people have Métis ancestry.
The Canadian Prairies are where you can find the most Métis people. The Métis in the United States are related to this group.
Throughout history, the Métis were an essential part of the trade network and helped the fur trading companies do well. Michif, a language many Métis people speak, is now considered endangered because fewer than 1,000 people speak it. There are French nouns and Cree verbs in the language.
2. Inuit
The Arctic region of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska is where the Inuit live most of the time. Not all of the native people who live in the Arctic are Inuit, though. “Inuk” is the word for a single Inuit.
The Northwest Territories and Nunavut have made Inuktitut an official language in Canada. People also speak Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, and Greenlandic.
The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, Sections 25 and 35, says that the Inuit are a separate group that can’t be put in the First Nation or Metis groups. Inuit groups have moved around a lot in the past. Inuit culture is based on a deep respect for wild animals and the land.
3. First Nation
The First Nations live in parts of Canada south of the Arctic Circle. The area that would become Canada was inhabited by the First Nations as early as 1000 BC or 500 BC.
There are more than 600 First Nations bands all over Canada. Each has a culture with a history that goes back hundreds of years. Anishinaabe and Cree, which have about 150,000 speakers, are the First Nations languages with the most speakers.