B. Map - Native-European Encounters Preserved in Native Oral Tradition and
European Written Narrative

Contact between Canada's First Nations and Europeans is not a phenomenon that can be placed within a single era or reduced to a single incident of exchange. For example, encounters between Europeans and the Inuit of the Arctic region occurred over a period of 900 years, whereas encounters with the First Nations spanned a period of 400 years.

Initial contact between First Nations and Europeans is characterised by European dependence upon First Nations peoples and resources. Contacts were sporadic and based primarily on the exchange of goods, which both groups actively pursued. Linguistic and cultural barriers often led to misunderstandings during their first encounters. Each First Nations group, as a result, formed a different impression of what each encounter signified, and this diversity of experiences is mirrored by the diversity of contact legends.

The historical record acknowledges Native-European encounters by the appearance of new and foreign goods within Native trading networks, the spread of disease, and by the presence of artefacts left behind by European explorers. Archaeological, botanical, and linguistic evidence is correlated to discover the nature, intent, and the outcome of the initial meetings between these groups.

Historians rely primarily on written documents, and during the early contacts between Europeans and First Nations, these written documents were exclusively those of the Europeans. Explorers kept journals in which they recorded their findings and impressions. These journals, however, are subject to interpretation and are biased in nature. Consequently, historians cannot rely exclusively on them to present a complete history of a particular contact event. Instead, they also analyse the oral record of First Nations history. Unlike the analysis of written documents, deciphering meaning and intent from oral history requires a different methodological approach. Although oral accounts are skewed by transcription to written form, and by translation from the original language into English, they communicate information about beliefs and about significant events, which have been passed from generation to generation.

Copyright © 2000 The Applied History Research Group

- Arctic: Inuit and Beothuk
- Atlantic Gulf and St. Lawrence: Mi'kmaq, Huron, and Iroquois
- Canadian Shield: Ojibway and Cree
- Pacific Coast: Cowichan
- Prairies: Blackfoot and Assiniboine
- Plateau: Okanagan and Shuswap
- Sub-Arctic: Chippewyan and Dene

Stones Unturned: Native Groups and their Clothing, Musical Instruments, Toys and Games