Curious about Indigenous History Month, or just about Indigenous history and culture in general, but unsure of where to start?

True North Aid believes in making educational resources as accessible as possible. We are always learning.

From e-books on terminology, to ways to get involved and start your own campaign to make a difference, this page offers many different resources on how to listen, learn, and be a better ally and advocate of Canada’s Indigenous, Métis, and Inuit communities.

Clicking the images will open the PDF in a separate tab for you to look through, download, and share.

These resources are approved to share with permission from Bob Joseph, founder of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., and we encourage everyone to download and share these PDFs as well.

For more information and additional resources from Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., head here!

Central Canada

Nova Scotia

Halifax, NS

Follow this page for upcoming events: Click here to find out more

New Brunswick

Fredericton, NB

National Indigenous Peoples Day – Officers’ Square, Fredericton
Date: June 19-21, 2026
Locations: Sitansisk (St. Mary’s First Nation) Annual Powwow 2026 510 Union Street, St. Mary’s

Come hear the drum beat of Mother Earth on June 19, 20, & 21 2026 at St Mary’s Old Reserve (510 Union Street) and listen to the voices of the ancestors of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) people as they share their culture through music, dance and traditional ceremonies.

Click here to find out more

Prince Edward Island

Charlottetown, PEI

National Indigenous Peoples Day – Confederation Landing Park
Date: June 21, 2026 (11am)
Location: Confederation Landing Park, 2 Great George Street, Charlottetown, PE

Join us June 21st in Charlottetown for National Indigenous Peoples Day!

Events include traditional drumming and dancing, craft vendors, and a free BBQ!

Click here to find out more

“Today’s apology is a step forward in acknowledging the truth of our past. We cannot separate the legacy of the residential school system from the institutions that created, maintained, and operated it, including the Government of Canada and the Catholic Church.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 2022

The Doctrine of Discovery and the doctrine of Terra Nullius justified a colonial empire’s forced control over Indigenous land across the globe. British, Dutch, French, Portuguese and Spanish empires have colonized 80% of the world’s countries.

The Doctrine of Discovery stems from a series of Papal Bulls (formal statements from the Pope) and extensions, originating in the 1400s during the “Age of Discovery”.

The Doctrine of Discovery gave moral and legal right for Christian governments to invade and seize (claim sovereignty) over Indigenous peoples and land by holding that Indigenous peoples cannot claim ownership of land.

Terra Nullius (empty land) finds its legal root in eighteenth century European law.

This was a theological and legal doctrine that allowed Christian European governments to justify and assume sovereignty over ‘discovered’ lands throughout the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. These lands were deemed devoid of human beings if the original people living there were not ruled by a Christian prince.

European colonization leaves a harmful legacy upon Indigenous peoples across the world, including Canada.

Colonization of Indigenous education in Canada dates back to the 17th century when French missionaries worked in tandem with the French Crown to convert and assimilate First Nations children under the guise of education. The Récollets were the first religious order to operate a boarding school for Indigenous students at their mission Notre-Dame-des-Anges, near the Quebec settlement in 1620. 

New France’s determination to grow their population was rooted in their relationship with various Indigenous nations, including the Wendat, Innu and Algonquin. In fact, there was a calculated effort to merge French and Indigenous allies through marriage and the procreation of children. Samuel de Champlain is quoted as saying, “our young men will marry your daughters, and we shall be one people (alors nos garçons se marieront à vos filles, & nous ne ferons plus qu’un seul peuple).” Whether through marriage or education, France’s colonial strategy to assimilate Indigenous people through culture, religion, and marriage was known as “Frenchification.” 

The French viewed Indigenous people as allies, reliant upon Indigenous teaching and tradition for survival. Therefore, missionaries employed a more relaxed approach in teaching Indigenous children, often accommodating Indigenous families’ seasonal hunts and offering traditional foods within the school. Despite this seemingly amicable, surface level observation of the French relationship with Indigenous people, French missionary boarding schools were the catalyst for the Indian Residential School system in Canada.

Canada is a vast and varied landscape, rich in resources that have long been sought after by European powers. The extraction of resources and the desire to colonize by claiming ownership of land underpinned the racist ideologies and laws that lead to the displacement of Indigenous people in Canada. The establishment of the residential school system in Canada is perhaps the most notorious form of displacement established by the government.

Between 1846 and 1883, many central figures to Canada’s unification agreed that the assimilation of Indigenous people would find success in the formal education of Indigenous children. These central figures include Charles Bagot, Egerton Ryerson, John. A MacDonald, Nicholas Flood Davin and Duncan Campbell Scott, representing the dominant global majority: white, Christian men with allegiance to the British Crown influenced a political agenda which determined to assimilate Indigenous children through education. Both politicians and professionals were commissioned to report on the state of Indigenous affairs, behaviours and governance as early as 1844 (The Bagot Commission). Egerton Ryerson’s report (The Ryerson Report) elaborated on Charles Bagot’s only one year later. The Gradual Civilization Act followed (1857), laying the foundation for the creation of the Indian Act in 1876. (Lavallée, 2010).

Britain knew that establishing colonial permanency would require extreme measures by which to acquire land and resources; and their success would come at an extreme cost to Indigenous traditions and livelihoods. Pre-Confederation colonists therefore used their faith to determine Canada a sovereign nation, charging that Indigenous people were in need of ‘saving’. (Sellers, 2017). This disingenuine excuse was merely an opportunity to build the psyche of colonists and look for ways to assert Britain’s rule, ultimately justifying the removal of Indigenous people from their land onto reserves and into residential schools in order to access space and resources.

At the request of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Nicholas Flood Davin visited Indigenous boarding schools in the United States, following up with a report called The Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds in 1879. Impressed by the American funding method of these schools, Davin recommended that Canada’s federal government do the same: while the operation of the schools would be downloaded to various Christian denominations, the federal government would commit to funding per student. 

The first 3 federally funded schools were established on the prairies in 1883. 

In 1884 Sir John A Macdonald amended the Indian Act that allowed Indigenous children to be taken by force. 

Children were removed from their families and communities and placed into residential schools with little to no oversight. They were forced to participate in an educational system that was far from home, unfamiliar, and more often cruel than it was not. 

It is estimated that over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, between the ages of 4 and 16 years old, attended Indian residential schools in Canada.

The last residential school closed in 1996.

“Article 3. Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous self-determination can be described as First Nations, Metis and Inuit people reclaiming an individual and collective autonomy of self: that Indigenous people will decide what is best for themselves outside of the colonial system they have been forced to operate in for centuries. 

This means that the 634 First Nation communities and its members, the 53 Inuit communities that exist across the far north, and those belonging to Metis organizations, will pursue and shape their own governing bodies, policies, economies, education, and control of traditional territories. All of which have been affected by the creation and implementation of reserves, residential schools, and the Indian Act.

In addition to section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1985 which lists ten principles that the government of Canada is committed to, Canada is also bound by international law, and is obligated to ensure that Indigenous self-determination is supported and encouraged by the Crown.

Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) states, “Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

Article 4 of UNDRIP, states “Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.”

Despite the appearance that Canada upholds Indigenous self-determination, there are many significant and harmful ways in which the government continues to violate its own laws and promises. From crown-controlled funding to land seizures, from breaking Treaty obligations to purposely excluding or replacing language within documents in its own favour, the government generates ongoing impediments to Indigenous self-determination. 

Canadians can support Indigenous self-determination within their own areas of influence. This includes but is not limited to, municipal and local organizations and businesses, workplaces and educational institutions.

This requires Canadians to insist that conversations and decisions concerning policies, land use and community engagement include Indigenous community members’ knowledge, wisdom, and guidance. In collaboration with the Indigenous community, best practices can be established to achieve rich, inclusive, and safeguarded outcomes.

Further, Canadians can help to ensure that Indigenous voices are present at provincial and federal levels, too. The commitment to Indigenous self-determination as a non-Indigenous person is an act of reconciliation that supports the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 45 – 47. These Calls to Action demand that the government repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, affirm nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous people and the Crown, respect signed Treaties, and more. 

See how True North Aid is supporting Self-Determination efforts in Canada by clicking here.

Reconciliation in Canada is a tricky concept, especially when non-Indigenous people are challenged to take a deep dive into their own histories and explore terms like ‘colonialism’. No one wants to be associated with a system that has left an extensive and harmful impact upon others. The term ‘Settler’ is yet another word that many refuse to come to terms with. Why?

Whether 1st or 10th generation non-Indigenous people have come to this land by choice or force, making us all settlers, a term that some people think is divisive. A term that some people feel undermines or perhaps dismisses their family’s history in Canada. However, the conversation is not about how long non-Indigenous people have lived in Canada, rather it being about our relationship and responsibility to it.

However, using the word Settler does not intend to do any of these. In a spirit of reconciliation, it is simply a way to make sense of the non-Indigenous person’s relationship to this land, and to the people it first & still belongs to.

True North Aid’s Reconciliation Program Coordinator, Katie Koopman, underpins this understanding in the 𝗦𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, a 4-part reconciliatory educational program that focuses on the topics of Privilege, Land, Residential Schools, and Allyship. From the classroom to the boardroom, virtually and in-person, hundreds of people have now participated since 2021.

In April, Woodbridge College Grade 11 high school students applied this understanding in two self-reflexivity exercises that asked them to consider their own histories, including how and why their families came to Canada, and to reflect upon their own cultural or religious creation stories that have shaped their understanding of their relationship to land, and to each other.

The students sketched out their personal experiences and were eager to share when asked to. In one class alone, students represent the countries of Afghanistan, Bulgaria, India, Iran, Pakistan, Poland, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

The point of these exercises were to help students socially locate themselves in the wider conversation about Canada:
– That this country is long defined by a single, Eurocentric worldview
– That this country is made up of more than just one narrative, including their own
– That our personal stories are not linear because humans and histories are complicated, as is non-Indigenous and Indigenous relationship in Canada.

And so, the questions we reflected upon at the end of our time together was, for whatever reason, and however we each have come to live here on this land, as Settlers, how do we do better?

Getting stuck on the length of time one’s family has lived in Canada only serves to justify or ‘one-up’ an argument, with no intention of committing to understanding Canada’s complex relationship between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people, and our responsibilities as citizens to collectively further reconciliation and social justice.

Propelling Truth and Reconciliation forward in Canada challenges Canadians to socially locate ourselves and our histories. When we do so, we provide a foundation to engage others in a more nuanced and thoughtful conversation about terms that, at one time, we may not have acknowledged.

*Image of book: 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝘾𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙎𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙋𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙖 𝙍𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙏𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚

Reconciliation: building a renewed relationship with Indigenous Peoples based on the recognition of rights, respect and partnership.

Conversation regarding repairing non-Indigenous and Indigenous relationships in Canada was first initiated in 1998, when the Canadian federal government responded to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples’ (1996) report with their own, called Gathering Strength: Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan. This action plan addressed the government’s role in creating and implementing residential schools and included a Statement of Reconciliation. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an official government apology for residential schools 11 years later, in 2008.

During this time, Canada’s largest class action settlement emerged, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA). This settlement acknowledged the harmful legacy of residential schools impacting Indigenous people, and established a multi-billion dollar recompense to assist former students with healing. The IRSSA also set aside money to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), an advisory body tasked with giving voice to more than 6,000 Indigenous residential school survivors over a five-year period. This was accomplished by raising public awareness through national events in major cities and collecting personal testimonies into a historical document. 

The TRC presented its findings in a series of reports in June 2015, with a final report, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, released in December 2015. In addition, the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action offered policy recommendations in specific areas challenging the government to not just make amends, but ensure that systems will be established so that these atrocities will never happen again.

According to the Yellowhead Institute’s Calls to Action Accountability: A 2023 Status Update on Reconciliation (Jewell and Mosby, 2023), “Zero Calls to Action were completed in 2023. Eight years since the release of the 94 Calls to Action, 81 Calls remain unfulfilled.”

In the short time we have been annually observing Canada’s record on its supposed progress, we’ve held the tension of the promise of reconciliation with the actual reality – exacerbated by the deep chasm between the two and frustrated by the discrepancy between inaction and Canada’s fantastical myths of benevolence.

Eva Jewell and Ian Mosby

Although the reconciliation conversation was pursued first between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian government, the word ‘reconciliation’ has become a broader grassroots invitation extended by Indigenous communities to the wider public. Individuals, families, schools, organizations, and businesses are also invited to learn about the truth about Canada’s history and its lasting, harmful legacy.

It is important to note that reconciliation is not for Indigenous people. Indigenous people have nothing to reconcile with a system that created and implemented racist policies and intentional harm against them. Reconciliation is, however, for non-Indigenous people. It is an opportunity for older generations to learn the history they were never made aware of, and it is an opportunity for younger generations to learn about and normalize living history. 

Reconciliatory education does not focus solely on the history of residential schools. It requires Canadians to look at the bigger picture that is colonization. Broken treaties, land disputes and inequitable socio-economic circumstances originate from and are perpetuated by colonial racist policies and embedded discriminatory attitudes. Consequently, colonization is a centuries old system that continues to benefit some over others, in particular, it benefits those who have white, European, Christian backgrounds.

While non-Indigenous individuals might feel attacked or removed from this truth for various reasons, this does not change the fact that this system must be changed and that we all have the power to do so. Reconciliation, therefore, becomes a collective responsibility to move forward in justice and effect change in our areas of influence.

See how True North Aid is supporting Reconciliation efforts in Canada by clicking here.

Education is a federally funded responsibility in northern and remote Indigenous reserves, whereas it is a provincial responsibility across Canada. This has created an inequitable and complicated two-tier education system in which Indigenous children continue to be left behind mainly due to accessibility. 

According to the Assembly of First Nations—First Nations Education Infrastructure Capital Needs Assessment, 2020, there are 526 First Nations schools across Canada, and $2.14 billion is required for new school construction and additions. Of these, 28% (or 140) are overcrowded. Further, 46 of the 526 First Nations schools required immediate replacement based on their age or poor condition.

The good news is that the government has made a significant attempt to invest in Indigenous education and infrastructure in the last ten years, and certainly, it has increased within the last three years. However, this investment is making up for decades of inadequate funding, and it remains a fact that many other social determinants affecting Indigenous education outcomes must also be addressed and acted upon.

Some of these social determinants include:

Yet, as the article Indigenous education can and must be fixed admits, government money will not solve the whole issue, and that there must be a ‘reinvention’ of Indigenous education by Indigenous communities themselves to move toward self-determination. Indigenous education must be rooted in culture and language programs in order for this to happen, and there are many emerging programs across Canada that are doing so.

True North Aid commits to supporting Indigenous education through our Education Stone of Support. Learn more here.

The Indian Act’s main purpose was to displace Indigenous people onto reserves or into residential schools. Notably, while the Indian Act granted the education of First Nations groups a federal responsibility, governance concerning Indigenous education was not included. This omission proves that it was never the intention of the government to ensure educational parity between non-Indigenous and Indigenous children.

Residential schools were underfunded, understaffed, and often overcrowded. The education Indigenous children did receive was often not taught beyond grade three due to the minimal or non-existent teaching qualifications of the religious order, whose main focus was religious instruction. Most of the day was spent by students completing the physical and domestic chores to keep the schools running at a minimal cost to the government.

The residential school system began with a modest budget of $44,000 a year in 1883.

This money, however, mostly came from cuts to government spending on other Indigenous community needs. Thus, the system’s funding was marked by the reluctance of the government to invest in the program. Not long after the residential school system emerged, critics began to denounce its economic utility, its care for student health, its limited academic success,

and its failure to create a cadre of young “assimilated Indians.”

Facing History & Ourselves, “Historical Background: The Indian Act and the Indian Residential Schools”, 2019.

Residential school survivors recall how malnutrition, unsanitary conditions and poor medical care led to outbreaks of diseases, including tuberculosis and flu epidemics. Many also recall the heartbreaking experiences of abuse that they experienced or witnessed.

The misleading intention of the federal government to assimilate Indigenous children through a Eurocentric educational model began to prove inadequate. This was substantiated by the fact many residential schools were in disrepair, and an investment in restoring the conditions of the buildings was not a priority of the government. Thus, the commitment to phase out residential schools began in the 1940s and was slow, with the last residential school closing 58 years later in 1998. 

There are three categories of Indigenous people in Canada: First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. Within these categories, there are distinct traditions, teachings, creation stories, governing practices, and languages. 

In the 2021 census by Statistics Canada, over 1.8 million people in Canada identified as Indigenous, making up 5 percent of the national population. (Parrott and Filice, 2023)

Over 630 First Nations communities in Canada represent more than 50 Nations and 50 Indigenous languages.

There are 53 Inuit communities encompass 35 percent of Canada’s land mass and 50 percent of its shoreline. These communities are situated in four regions across northern Canada: the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (northern Northwest Territories), Nunavut, Nunavik (northern Quebec) and Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador). Together, these are called the Inuit Nunangat region.

Approximately 624,220 people in Canada self-identify as Métis. According to the 2021 Census, one-third of this number claims Métis identity within a Métis organization or settlement. (Gaudry, et al., 2023.)

Canada made great attempts to erase Indigenous culture through the creation and implementation of the residential school and reserve systems, which forced Indigenous children to assume a Eurocentric Christian culture by anglicizing Indigenous names, punishing those who spoke their traditional language, and forbidding cultural practices.  

Despite these attempts, Indigenous people continue to act resiliently today, reclaiming what is rightfully theirs. This includes initiating community-led projects and programs that involve healing practices, traditional language education, food sovereignty initiatives, and land acquisition.

Therefore, it is more important than ever for Canadians to affirm, respect, and learn about the diversity of Indigenous nations from coast to coast and to support Indigenous reclamation efforts where possible.

True North Aid is proud to support cultural initiatives across Canada through our Community Initiatives Programs. 

From material circumstances (housing standards, access to necessities, safety) to psychosocial components (isolation, access to social services support), from health behaviours to genetic predispositions, the overall well-being of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people continue to be affected by an inequitable parallel health system in Canada.

The World Health Organization (WHO) lists the following as social determinants of health:

These determinants of health provide a framework by which to understand health outcomes of groups of people. For instance, life expectancy for Inuit is a decade less than the Canadian average. Why is this so? 

While positive efforts continue to be made to undo a harmful colonial legacy, a study of Indigenous physician access in Canada between 2017-2020, funded by Indigenous Services Canada, confirmed that “Remoteness and economic deprivation” (Yangzom, Masoud & Hahmann, 2023) contribute to the inequitable disparity in accessing a regular healthcare physician.  

True North Aid commits to addressing the harmful effects of historical and present-day health inequities by supporting Indigenous-led health initiatives in various practical, holistic ways at the request of the communities themselves. Learn how.

Food brings comfort and stirs memory, encourages well-being, and drives tradition. It sustains income and ensures survival. 

A food-secure community engages in food production, can generate a livelihood from food, offers opportunities to rebuild traditional food skills, and has full access to the land to carry out all of these. In Canada, Indigenous food security has been interfered with, even destroyed by colonization. Examples of how this has happened over hundreds of years include:

Today, food insecurity disproportionately affects Indigenous people for several reasons, these include:

A webinar hosted by The Narwhal in November 2023 focused on Indigenous food security. A panel of Indigenous knowledge keepers and land-based educators shared a variety of suggestions in which Indigenous people can reclaim Indigenous food traditions:

• Post-secondary institutions offer broad agriculture structures; however, offering agriculture competencies through short courses would better build community capacity
• Regarding how to support Indigenous food-related initiatives, communities must be asked how they want to be supported.
• Best practices first begin with small steps
• Community members must champion any large-scale food project with a sustainable vision 
• Any food project must include best practices that not only seek input from community members but also seek to keep everyone informed, engaged, empowered, connected, and protected.

By reclaiming traditional food systems, Indigenous people across Canada begin to self-determine their cultural identities and health. 

True North Aid seeks to fund projects that support traditional food systems, implement the above, and fund other food initiatives that bring relief to Indigenous people living in northern and remote communities.