First Nations, Inuit and Métis — a note

Comparison

⚠ THREE DISTINCT PEOPLES, RECOGNISED SEPARATELY IN THE CONSTITUTION, AND NOT A SINGLE CATEGORY. FIRST NATIONS are over 600 communities in dozens of language families — Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Athabaskan/Dene, Salishan, Wakashan, Tsimshianic, Haida, Tlingit and more — whose foodways differ as much as European ones do. INUIT are a circumpolar people across Inuit Nunangat: Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut. MÉTIS are a distinct people who emerged from the fur trade with their own language, MICHIF, and their own foodways. ⚠ "INDIGENOUS CANADIAN CUISINE" IS NOT A THING and this system does not assert one. What is recorded is specific: people, territory, language, season, species, technique — and nothing ceremonial, sacred or restricted.

Communities and languages

First Nations community documented

Inuit community documented

Métis community documented

Languages: Inuktitut, Plains Cree, Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin), Mi'kmaq, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Heritage Michif, Gwich'in, Inuvialuktun, Northern Haida, Tlingit, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwak'wala, Nisga'a, Gitxsan, Okanagan, Atikamekw, Montagnais

What is recorded

First Nations, Inuit and Métis are recognised as three distinct peoples in the Canadian constitution and are recorded separately here. First Nations comprise over 600 communities across many unrelated language families and their foodways are not recorded as uniform. No single Indigenous Canadian cuisine is asserted. Ceremonial, sacred and restricted knowledge is not recorded. documented