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In the Beginning

WERE THEY HUNGRY? WERE THEY LOST? Or were they simply following game across the land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska?

We may never know the elusive details about those first arrivals, or even when they arrived — the men, women, children, small families, or tiny groups of hunters and gatherers who were lured to this land mass. Historians and archaeologists believe that human hunters did not reach the western edge of northeastern Siberia (western Beringia) until perhaps thirty-five thousand years ago.[1] When they actually made the crossing is still hotly debated, but we do know that those first daring hunters lived by the spear and the snare as they tracked and attacked the woolly mammoths and mastodons that roamed the continent in prehistoric times. They lived a nomadic life, foraging and trapping small game in addition to hunting the herds of large animals they relied on for meat, and for life itself.

The established theory is that these hunters arrived in this new environment either on foot across the land bridge that once connected the two continents, or by coasting in watercraft. However, we must not overlook the traditions of Canada’s First Nations, who believe their ancestors, those first people on this continent, were “from the land” or “from the soil,” children of the Great Creator, who have been here from the beginning of time.

Whatever their origins and despite their limited technological resources — fire, spears, atlatls (throwing spears), snares, and nets — those first peoples must have been adept at surviving, for not only did they find themselves in a new environment, but some dramatic climate changes were also taking place around them. As the great glaciers of ice that had gripped the land melted, the climate warmed, and this development affected the vegetation the mammoths and mastodons depended on to survive, eventually driving them to extinction. The bands of hunters, therefore, were forced to diversify and turned to smaller game such as bison, deer, caribou, bear, fox, hare, and beaver. Fish, wild fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs became more important to their diet, as well. To ensure that everyday life was not just a feast or a famine depending on the success of the hunters, those early people became skilled at preserving some of their food by air- or sun-drying it or smoking it. They could then carry it with them more easily, or they could store it in stone-lined caches on well-travelled routes and return to it when it was needed.

In 6000 BC, the human population of North America was still sparse and was scattered in a myriad of isolated hunter-gatherer bands. If we judge from sites in many areas, people spent most of the year living in small family groups, exploring large hunting territories. They might have come together with their neighbours for a few weeks during the summer months at favoured locations near rivers or nut groves. The bands would have held ceremonies, arranged marriages, and traded fine-grained rocks suitable for tool-making and other commodities. Then they would have gone their separate ways, following migrating game, trapping small animals, and foraging for wild food.[2]

Although these were usually nomadic people, they followed a “seasonal round” that was influenced by the changing seasons and their knowledge of the grazing herds. They often had seasonal or semipermanent camps to which they returned for harvests and hunts. A few bands appear to have settled in extended family groups or tribes in different geographical areas and survived by adapting in different ways to the food that could be found there. For example, the archaeological record tells us that among the oldest sites on the West Coast of Canada was one that occurred in the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haidi Gwaii) of present-day British Columbia between 10,000 BC and 8000 BC. There a combination of rich marine resources, bird flocks, and animal herds would have eased the challenge of survival.[3] Archaeologists believe there are many other early sites on Canada’s coastlines. However, they are probably now underwater.

Abundant coastal vegetation provided both food and medicines. Blackberries and thimbleberries were flavourful additions to the diet and, in combination, were often used to cure nausea and vomiting. Roots of wild ginger were employed not only as a seasoning, but were also boiled to produce tea that was taken to cure indigestion and colic.

Like the early settlers on the Pacific Coast, other bands and nations eventually chose specific locations — on the dry, short grass of the prairies, for instance, some grew adept at hunting bison, one of the few big-game species to survive the Ice Age. These animals were found in large numbers after the glaciers retreated; in fact, it is believed that at one point six million roamed the prairies. Incredible patience was needed to pursue bison on foot, for it took days of slow stalking and an intimate knowledge of the animal’s habits. Perhaps several bands would co-operate in a game drive. They would encircle a few beasts or, more often, stampede a herd into a swamp or a narrow defile. In some cases, they would drive the frightened creatures over a cliff or into dune areas.[4] After the slaughter, every part of the animal was utilized to survive — for food, medicine, clothing, and shelter. A large animal like the bison could provide meat for weeks, even months, if it was properly preserved by drying or smoking.

Farther to the east the woodlands and lakes teemed with smaller game, fish, and birds, and this plenitude attracted other bands. Communities developed at strategic locations on rivers and creeks to take advantage of caribou crossings, fish runs, and places where passenger pigeons nested. The men hunted while the women tended the nets and gathered wild plant foods, berries, and nuts. Ancient hearths have been discovered where meat and fish were cooked slowly on hot rocks.[5] Here, too, in the Great Lakes region, stretching from today’s Manitoba through Ontario and into Quebec, was clay suitable for forming bowls and pots for food storage and preparation, and some pottery shards have been found that resemble cooking vessels from Siberia.[6]

In this area, the rich soil was cleared and crops were planted using pointed digging sticks, then was tended with crude wooden hoes, fertilized with whole fish, and harvested. Those tribes that realized the benefits of staying in one location and nurturing certain plants and crops were transformed from hunters and gatherers into farmers. Such tribes learned that maize (corn), beans, and squash assured them an annual and adequate food supply that was easily stored and traded to non-farming people as needed. These three foods took on a symbolic role. Native peoples considered maize to be their Sacred Mother, one of the Three Sisters, along with beans and squash, that should be planted together in hills and eaten in tandem.

In this region, too, were sugar maple trees with the gift of sweet sap, proving that the Great Creator was again providing both food and a strengthening medicine for their needs. When the “sugar moon” appeared in the spring, it was the signal that the people should move to the sugar maple groves and prepare for the ceremony of thanksgiving, in which they feasted, told stories and legends surrounding other harvests, and then began the harvest of the sap. The sap was placed in wooden or birchbark containers, then hot rocks were dropped into them until eventually the sap thickened into syrup to be used in cooking soups, puddings, fish, fowl, or game. Quantities of the thick syrup were also poured into cooling troughs and kneaded by hand or with a paddle until they were thick and creamy. This soft sugar was poured into moulds and stored to be used later by the harvesting families, or to barter with other tribes.

In the cool, rich virgin soil of the hardwood forests lurked a plant that became known as ginseng (Panax quinquefolium). This traditional Native medicine was called ginens and was used as a stimulant and to ease stomach pains and bronchial disorders, as well as to alleviate headaches, fever, asthma, and nausea. Long before European explorers ventured onto the North American continent, Dr. Stanley Holling tells us that medicine men in the Lake of the Woods area were using local plants to heal the sick.

Sarsaparilla was employed for coughs, while small spruce cones were eaten to cure sore throats. Blueberry flowers were dried and placed on hot rocks, and the fumes were inhaled to cure “craziness.” Common chickweed leaves, steeped in hot water, were applied to sore eyes. The root of the lady’s slipper was chopped up and moistened to form a poultice to be applied to relieve a toothache. Nettle roots were steeped to cure urinary-system difficulties and dysentery. Sumac blossoms, cut when the white bloom was on and boiled down in water, cured dysentery. Chewing the sumac root cured a sore mouth or aided a youngster who was teething.[7]

In the north, the evergreen forests were dotted with rivers and lakes and provided wildlife in abundance — moose, deer, and bear, as well as small game. In marshy areas, wild rice grew freely, another gift of the Great Creator. In the fall, when the “rice moon” appeared, the people would move out to camps near the rice fields in preparation for the ceremony of the first rice and for the harvest, which was carried out by the women.[8] The men then processed the rice in preparation for storing it for the long winter ahead, either as food or as another valuable barter item.

Farther east still, in the St. Lawrence River region and the land bordering the Atlantic Ocean, other bands and tribes harvested the riches of the land, rivers, and sea. The discovery of artifacts at several sites on the Atlantic seaboard has established a human presence dating back at least ten thousand years, when the land that later became Prince Edward Island was still joined to the mainland. Here nomadic bands are believed to have hunted caribou, seal and walrus, fish and birds.[9] They combined hunting with foraging, turning to the pursuit of the white-tailed deer and other smaller mammals as many of the large Ice Age animals vanished. By 8000 BC, a widespread shift to more generalized hunting and gathering was underway. The peoples of the eastern woodlands exploited a broad variety of foods and forest resources, consuming such foods as grey squirrels, nuts from the annual harvests, and seed-bearing grasses. It is believed that small game, fish, mollusks, and vegetable foods assumed greater importance in Native diets.[10]

In eastern Canada, the First Nations used local plants such as fiddleheads and blueberries for food, dyes, and medicine. Seed-bearing grasses, bark, and other natural materials were utilized for weaving baskets to hold and store food and other possessions. These, too, were valuable barter items among their own tribes and nations, and later proved to be appealing to the newcomers as barter or sale items.

For centuries First Nations and newcomers have treasured fiddleheads, the small green curled fronds of the ostrich fern that appear in low-lying wooded areas along streams in March and April.

On the island that became known as Newfoundland and the area known as Labrador, the First Nations had a rich diet of salmon, flounder, smelt, geese, cormorants, seabird eggs, beaver, moose, wolves, lynx, hare, porcupine, and bear. They would hunt caribou during the animal’s annual fall migration, not only for food but for the skins, which would be sewn together (fur inward for warmth) for cloaks and moccasins. Tools made of four-thousand-year-old walrus ivory and others made of bone, ivory, antler, and stone, dating to periods over the past eleven thousand years and including some artifacts produced by the now-extinct Beothuk people, have survived. Expert knowledge of fish behaviour and seasonal spawning patterns was key to the survival of Native communities who valued the hide, ivory, and oil of the walrus, and the oil of the porpoise.[11]

In the spring, many First Nations would move to the shores of the waterways and oceans to dig clams, mussels, and oysters, while others would spear shad, bass, salmon, and gaspereau (alewives). In mid-April, the suckers (a relative of the carp) began to run, and traps were set for them. The fish were filleted, tied in bales, and carried from camp to camp. During the summer, the First Nations speared pickerel, sturgeon, trout, and whitefish, which were either dried or eaten fresh, wrapped in bark or leaves, and roasted in a pit of coals. In the winter, they speared fish through the ice as they were needed. When the chiefs of the tribes met, or later when newcomers began to arrive, there was always a ceremonial exchange of gifts, with fish a symbolic mark of respect.

There may have been many waves of newcomers moving across the land, but it is now believed the final migration could have been that of those people who braved the ice of Arctic Canada as they followed herds of caribou and musk ox into this unknown territory. They built winter homes of snow and summer homes framed with whalebones and covered with skins. They travelled in hide-covered watercraft called umiaks and kayaks, or by foot and eventually by dogsled as they moved across the frozen tundra in search of food.

Fish, seals, whales, caribou, bears, and waterfowl were their quarry; harpoons and spears were their weapons. They, too, used their ingenuity to settle into the harsh environment of northern Canada and become self-sufficient, exploiting everything available to them to survive.

Despite their diversity of cultures, lifestyles, traditions, languages, and beliefs, and the rivalries that sometimes led them to war, these first peoples developed well-organized barter systems that spanned the continent from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. This feat may have been accomplished through a multitude of hand-to-hand transactions. Thus, diverse items such as tobacco, feathers, seashells, furs, copper, mica, and chert were moved into new regions of the country to supplement what may originally have been found there.

Just as important were the food items that could have been exchanged on that barter system, long before European contact. Consider plums, maize (corn), wild rice, beans, squash, hazelnuts, black walnuts, butternuts, sunflower seeds, maple syrup, maple sugar, and more!

Hence, long before contact with the rest of the world, the First Nations had learned how to use the indigenous plants, trees, animals, marine life, and other resources that surrounded them, not only for food but for medicines, insecticides, clothing, tools, construction materials, and firewood. Eventually, food for their dogs (probably European stock that had interbred with North American wolves) came from the same source.

Was life for those First Nations just an endless round of hunting, fishing, foraging, farming, and making weapons, tools, and equipment so there was food for the next meal? Until the fifteenth century, when newcomers began their quest for the precious spices of the Indies, the history of the First Nations is, for the most part, an oral one, as their traditions, beliefs, and legends have been recounted through the centuries by their elders and storytellers. In addition to this oral history, we have some artifacts and images created by the First Nations. They range from spectacular crest (totem) poles to tiny bone carvings and delicate moose-hair or porcupine-quill embroidery that have endured. We also have the description by Sarain Stump, a First Nations artist who in the following excerpt from Two Forms of Art published in Saskatchewan in 1973, identifies her people by the names given to them when newcomers from Europe arrived:

Although it is generally accepted that no proper writing was invented and used by North American Indians before historic times, it is certain that our ancestors supplied their need for a graphic recording system by using ideograms. These were usually codified symbols … the Ojibwa Indians and related Algonkians of the Great Lakes region fixed on birch bark rolls instructions for the proceedings of their complicated ceremonies. The Plateau people engraved, by burning, on chips of wood. Petroglyphs (messages concerning a particular location) are found in many areas of the continent.... The Wanapum (Wampum) belts of the Iroquois, capes and collars worn by Wabnaki dignitaries, quilled and bead embroidery created in the Plains and McKenzie Delta region and many of the ornamental designs on the baskets, pottery and textiles are informative symbols combined in artistic compositions. The creator is also trying to transfer, as faithfully as possible, the physical beauty of the natural world and all its creatures.[12]

Elizabeth Simcoe, the wife of Upper Canada’s first lieutenant-governor, illustrated the food traditions of the First Nations in pictures, as in this sketch, and in words. Archives of Ontario

Little did the First Nations know that their natural world would one day be turned upside down. Life would never be the same again after people they had not even known to exist began to brave the northern Atlantic Ocean in search of the exotic and elusive foods and other resources they either needed or desired at home. Two worlds were about to collide, and when they did, the newcomers realized they had stumbled on a land of incredible harshness, beauty, and bounty. That bounty was at times destined to appear not only on Canadian tables but on the tables of the hungry around the world.