06/02/2026
Today for we turn our attention north — honoring our Indigenous relatives of Canada, as June is National Indigenous History Month.
This recognition was first made official in 2009 by the House of Commons as National Aboriginal History Month, and updated to its current name in 2017. But long before any parliament designated it, summer was already a sacred time for Indigenous peoples across Canada.
Here are some of the nations who have shaped it from the beginning:
The Niitsitapi, known to many as the Blackfoot Confederacy, held territory stretching from the Alberta foothills all the way into Montana. They built a civilization around the Buffalo. For 6,000 years, their people gathered at places like Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in ceremony and intention. Their hunt was survival AND prayer.
The Plains Cree, the largest Indigenous group in Canada, followed the Buffalo across the northern prairies. Their food, their shelter, their economy, their spiritual life moved with the herd.
The Métis, born from the meeting of First Nations and European fur trade cultures on the western plains, became among the most skilled Buffalo hunters in history.
The Nakoda, relatives of the Lakota, carried their relationship with Buffalo into the foothills of the Rockies.
On the Atlantic coast, the Mi'kmaq have walked in relationship with their lands and waters since long before European contact. This year marks 300 years since the signing of the first Peace and Friendship Treaty between the British Crown and Indigenous Nations of the region — a treaty that never surrendered their land, and one that still stands today.
We're proud to share that our own Marketing Director, Phillip Gaudon, is a member of the Mi'kmaq Nation. Like nations across Turtle Island, the Mi'kmaq continue to steward their homelands and carry their responsibilities forward to the generations still coming.
The land remembers all of them and so do we.
🦬🌊
📸 Photo by Phillip — Tablelands, Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.
