From Sea to Sea; From Coast to Coast to Coast (Canada Day 2021)
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea.
This line, from the King James Version of Psalm 72, forms the basis for Canada's national motto: a mari usque ad mare (from sea to sea). It's a reference to the country's vast geographic range, from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; recent iterations of the concept have even made it three-way by including the Arctic Ocean in the north as well: "from coast to coast to coast".
(The farthest east and west I have ever been in Canada:
Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Atlantic, and Victoria, British Columbia on the Pacific)
Looking back through the archives, I notice that my first post on this blog was on Canada Day 2017; now, during this revival of the blog four years later, I've come back around full circle to Canada Day 2021.
Or, have I?
The truth of the matter is that this year's Canada Day will not be like any other Canada Day many of us have seen. No-one planned for the recent grim discoveries at former Indian residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan to come so close to the holiday, but they have, and we are all still dealing with the aftermath. In such an environment, knowing what we do now as Canadians, how do we approach a national holiday that, up to now, many of us have simply taken for granted?
I admit that I do not have an answer to this; there is even reasonable argument that as someone who is not an injured party, as someone who is non-Indigenous, I have no right to say what should or shouldn't be done this year for Canada Day. However, what I do know is this: I am a Chinese Canadian who has lived in this country almost my entire life; and like it or not, I am a settler in a country that was built upon and continues to benefit from the displacement and cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples. That said, I still cannot deny the fact that I am proud of who I am and where I live. I do still strongly believe that there is much about this country to be proud of - and I cannot, as a Christian, dismiss the fact that I believe it was in God's plan for me to be here. In Canada. In this moment.
I admit that I do not have the answers. I am aware that a number of people and municipalities in Canada have decided to tone down or forego their Canada Day celebrations this year: if that is what you believe is the most appropriate response, according to what your conscience tells you, then go ahead.
However, that is not what I want to do. Instead, rather than skipping over Canada Day this year, I want to rework it. Inspired by the exhibit (both on-site and online) "Infinity of Nations" hosted by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and by my country's own national motto, I want to take you all on a journey - from coast to coast to coast - through the vibrant diversity of Canada's Indigenous cultures. While I have not had the chance to meet with many Indigenous individuals myself, I have had the opportunity to visit many exhibitions in art galleries and museums that have been developed in collaboration with Indigenous advisors and curators. And that small cross-section is what I want to show you today.
("The Prince" (2006) by Brian Jungen, an Indigenous artist
of mixed Dane-Zaa and Swiss descent. This sculpture, made with
leather baseball gloves, is a parody of the 'cigar store Indian'
sculptures that marked tobacconists' shops throughout Europe.)
I know that, in the grand scheme of Truth and Reconciliation, this isn't much. But I hope that, through this post, you will be able to see that, despite everything they have been through, Indigenous cultures have survived and continue to thrive to this day.
So, starting in the east, then moving to the west and the north....
The Atlantic Coast (Mi'kmaq, Maliseet)
Mi'kmaq Quillwork
One of the things that stands out the most to me about Indigenous cultures as a general whole is the way that artists used the natural resources around them to make items that were both practical and beautiful. While quillwork (i.e. decorating goods with dyed porcupine quills) is common in a wide variety of Indigenous cultures, these pieces from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) were made by the Mi'kmaq, who were particularly noted for this craft among the First Nations peoples in this region.
These pieces also show how Indigenous people utilized traditional crafts and skills to provide an income for themselves, their families and their communities: quillwork-decorated bags, boxes and furniture were produced predominantly for sale to European and Euro-Canadian traders, settlers and visitors.
The Eastern Woodlands (Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat)
Anishinaabeg Birchbark Canoes
I will admit to being somewhat biased towards the Eastern Woodlands because the geographical area it encompasses, the St. Lawrence River valley and the Great Lakes, is where I live and grew up. More specifically, I'm from the land and territory of the Anishinaabeg: a broad term that refers to a number of Algonquian-language-speaking peoples, such as the Algonquin, the Ojibwe, the Odawa, the Mississauga, etc.
One of the major features of Anishinaabeg cultures is the importance they place upon birchbark. Birchbark, for those who are not aware, peels off the birch trees in large sheets (as opposed to flakes or narrow strips), making it a sturdy and pliable material for all kinds of uses. And, in terms of contributions to Canadian history and culture more generally, none of those uses surpass the canoes in my mind. Birchbark canoes, made by stitching sheets of birchbark together with spruce root into a form fitted over a wooden frame, were the primary means of transportation for the Anishinaabeg on Canada's many rivers and waterways. Designed to cut quickly through the water and to be light enough to be carried overland if the need arose, these canoes were readily adopted by European settlers and traders in place of their own wooden boats: one of the few times when Indigenous technology superseded its European counterpart.
(Note: the bottom canoe in the photographs is a modern-day replica of a freight canoe - the type used to transport goods in the fur trade - at the ROM. Pictures do not do this thing justice: 36 feet long, and capable of holding a crew of 8-10 men along with up to 4 tons of cargo.)
Maple Sugar and Maple Syrup
Perhaps because they lived in one of the first points of contact with Europeans, many elements of Eastern Woodland peoples' cultures have now become associated with "Canadian" culture at large. In fact, both of Canada's major national symbols - the beaver and the maple - come from this history. I already commented on the beaver in previous posts, so this time, my focus is on the maple.
Maple syrup, that quintessential Canadian product, actually has Indigenous origins. It's hard to tell which exact nation started tapping and cooking maple sap like this first, but suffice it to say that by the time the first European settlers arrived, Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands were already doing it on an annual basis. Maple syrup and sugar were far more readily available to settlers compared to cane sugar (i.e. what we usually think of as "sugar" today), so it soon became widespread as a sweetener in this region.
The items photographed here, from the ROM, are similar to the tools that would have been used historically by Indigenous peoples: a birchbark vessel for collecting the maple sap (there is a hypothesis that similar vessels were also used for the cooking process prior to the introduction of European metal pots), a strainer to skim off bits of leaves or bark, and a mould to shape the finished sugar into blocks for ease of storage.
Central Plains (Nakoda, Niisitapiikwan/Siksika, Métis)
Wapaha (i.e. the eagle feather headdress)
This, more than anything, is probably the first thing that comes to mind when one visualizes our Indigenous peoples, particularly for those of you who live outside of North America. Therefore, it may come as a surprise that the wapaha really is distinct to the peoples who lived in the Plains: headdresses in general were common across many cultures, but forms varied significantly.
While I do not know how it was that the wapaha became so strongly associated with depictions of Indigenous peoples in general, what I do know is that it is also one of the most contentious symbols of indigeneity out there. Originally meant to be a sacred piece of regalia worn by chiefs and community leaders - each individual feather must be earned, so you can imagine the amount of accumulated wisdom and life experience a full headdress implies - it has also been frequently misappropriated by corporations and individuals trying to add an "Indian" (and I do use the term deliberately) flair to their work. I addressed this point in greater detail once on my old blog, so I won't repeat myself here.
Given that, though, it is interesting to see how Indigenous peoples have, in turn, reclaimed the complex symbolism of the wapaha, and some of the examples I've seen are featured in these photographs. The top two are traditional Plains wapaha from the Musée McCord and the ROM respectively, but the bottom two photos are more storied. On the left, you see a costume that was worn by a Haudenosaunee performer in the early 20th century as part of the "pageants" that were popular in Euro-American and -Canadian communities; although the Haudenosaunee did not wear the wapaha historically, it was already expected as a part of "authentic" "traditional" Indigenous dress. As for the image on the right, this is a metallic sculpture made in 1999 by Christopher Wabie, an Algonquin artist, where the use of "modern" materials represents the resilience of Indigenous peoples and cultures over time, as well as their continued relevance today.
The Métis: a blend of cultures
When working in a Canadian context, I cannot discuss the Indigenous peoples of the Central Plains without pointing out the Métis: a people of mixed French- or Scottish-Canadian and First Nations descent. They are among the most visible and prominent legacies of the historic fur trade, and have, depending on the specific context and historical moment, been associated with both Indigenous and French Canadian identity. For instance, they are now considered part of Canada's Indigenous peoples (alongside the First Nations - i.e. what most people think of as "Indigenous" - and Inuit), but have historically been viewed by the Québécois as fellow French Canadians seeking to fight for rights and recognition against an Anglophone government.
It is also in the Métis that we can see how hard it can be sometimes to disentangle the threads between First Nations, Québécois and Métis cultures. For instance, many of the artefacts that have been preserved and displayed in museums, like these items here, are not labelled explicitly as Métis. Instead, they are often labelled as either Métis or First Nations in origin. Perhaps, this is because by the time the French-Canadian fur traders started to make inroads into the Plains, their own culture and manner of dress have been heavily influenced by the Indigenous peoples in Québec. Therefore, it was these hybridized items, like the capote (the dark wool coat in the top right) and the ceinture fléchée, that became incorporated into Métis dress alongside the beaded and embroidered hide garments that were more common in Indigenous communities.
Pacific Northwest (Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, Coast Salish)
Totem Poles and Cedar Wood
Whereas the wapaha is oftentimes the most visually recognizable form of Indigenous cultures in general, I sometimes think that the cedar carvings (including totem poles) from the Pacific Northwest would be the form that's most strongly tied to Canada specifically. Just about every single Canadiana souvenir shop will contain some reference to them, and they even form a significant component of "Canadianized" decor in other parts of the world.
However, what I want to focus on this time around is the way that structures like these poles reflect the relationship that the Pacific Northwest First Nations have with their land. See, one of the reasons why the totem poles or the massive multi-household cedar plank houses are even possible is that the Indigenous peoples who created them lived in permanent settlements. This is very different from the way of life for most of the other Indigenous peoples we've covered so far: most of those are either nomadic (e.g. the Central Plains peoples) or semi-nomadic (e.g. the Anishinaabe), moving throughout the seasons in search of food; and even those who had agricultural societies (e.g. the Haudenosaunee or the Huron-Wendat) built dwellings that were meant to last around ten years, as the community would need to relocate as the soil became depleted.
For the Pacific Northwest First Nations, however, their main food source was the water: specifically, the salmon. Therefore, while smaller bands and family groups would move to temporary camps closer to the coast as needed, it was possible for everyone to reconvene during the winter in these permanent dwellings. As a result, the Pacific Northwest also has a particularly rich material culture, encapsulated in the potlatch: a ceremonial gathering where communities traded and exchanged gifts, such as blankets, decorated boxes, and copper shields, with each other.
Subarctic (Dene, Gwich'in, Cree, Innu, Anishinaabeg)
I should point out that what I term the "Subarctic" here actually covers a vast geographical area that, while relatively consistent in terms of climate and biome, is far larger than any of the other regions I've discussed so far. Therefore, it is not uncommon for some institutions, like the Musée McCord, to split these peoples and cultures further into Western (e.g. Dene, Gwich'in) and Eastern (e.g. Innu, Anishinaabeg) groups, with various Cree peoples on both sides. However, for the purposes of this blog post, I am going along with the ROM's decision to group them together into a single broad cultural category, as my focus is on a single particular item.
Innu Caribou Skin Coat
However, as beautiful and as meaningful as this is, this type of coat is also, to the best of my knowledge, the only cultural artefact that I feature in this post that has been lost to history. The Innu as a people still survive, but the means by which their ancestors made and painted garments like this only survive in piecemeal oral accounts. At a time when we as a nation must reflect on our past and present relationship with Indigenous peoples, there is a bittersweet lesson here: many elements of Indigenous cultures have survived despite past efforts to eradicate them, but there is also no way to make up for the parts that have been lost. There is no going back; we can only move on ahead and hope to make a fresh start based on reconciliation and healing.
Arctic (Inuit)
Amauti (i.e. Women's Parka)
When reflecting on all that has survived, as well as all that has been lost, from our Indigenous cultures, it is appropriate to end this tour from coast to coast to coast on something that represents hope for the next generation.
Canada as a whole is famous - or infamous, depending on your perspective - for its extreme cold, and nowhere is that truer than in the Arctic. However, this is the same inhospitable environment where the Inuit, Canada's northernmost Indigenous people, have lived for thousands of years. Because of this, over time, they have adapted to their natural environment: developing ingenious ways to stay warm despite limited resources.
The amauti, one of several kinds of parka worn by the Inuit, is my personal favourite aspect of Inuit cultural life, simply because of its purpose and what that represents. In these images, note how wide and loose the amauti is in the back: some even have what appears to a large hood (pulled up over the "head" in the top left and bottom photos). This is because the amauti, at least the version shown by these three examples, is worn by women with babies and small children: the child would be carried piggy-back style on their mother's back, and the amauti would cover them both in its warmth. It's worth noting that in cases like this, the baby might actually be naked: in this way, he or she is warmed both by the fur-lined garment and the mother's body.
However, in addition to warmth and its importance in physical survival, I think there is something deeper here. Many Indigenous cultures place enormous value on the family: language, customs, and values are passed down orally from one generation to the next. Therefore, if that close generational contact is severed at any point, the culture risks being lost.
This, more than anything else, is where the true devastation of policies like the Indian residential school system lies: removing Indigenous children from their families distanced them from their roots; and with each successive generation of survivors, more and more of the culture faded away. Yet, through massive concerted effort, so much did survive.
And it continues to survive. From coast to coast to coast.
(Map at the Musée McCord showing the distribution of different
Indigenous peoples in Canada. Note that many nations have multiple names;
for the purposes of this blog post, I used a combination of naming
systems from both the McCord and the ROM.)
Image Credits
All photographs (c) Kitty Na
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