Level 30 Native Studies

The Canadian government devised a plan to relocate families to ensure Canadian sovereignty of the Arctic. The families were told game was plentiful, communities would be in one place and they could leave after two years. When Martha was five years old, her family was enticed to leave their Inuit ...

The First Nations community of Attawapiskat declares a state of emergency. Many residents of the isolated Northern Ontario reserve are living in tents, trailers and temporary shelters, even as winter approaches. This video looks at the desperate state of that community and why it needs help.

Scientists have long assumed that humans arrived in the Americas by crossing a land corridor in the north about 13,000 years ago. There is evidence they may have arrived long before that and by an entirely different route. This video looks at that evidence and what it could mean for the prehistor...

This video program explores the issue of First Nations children who grow up without their fathers - the "blind spot." Two central themes in the program can lead to classroom discussion. First, the decimation of the buffalo stripped males of their role as providers and protectors. Moving First Nat...

For more than a hundred years many First Nations children were taken away from their families, and forced to attend residential schools. In 2008, the Canadian government apologizes for the suffering and the abuse many experienced. This video explores the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commi...

After decades of waiting, Aboriginal Canadians receive a formal apology from the federal government on June 11, 2008. This event in Canadian history recognizes the loss of culture caused by the church-run residential schools that thousands of Aboriginal children were forced to attend. It also ack...

In 1967, Winnipeg hosts the Pan American Games and 10 teenage boys are chosen to run 800 kilometres with the games torch. Nine of the young men are from residential schools. When the runners arrive at the stadium, they are not allowed to enter with the torch. Instead, a non-Aboriginal runner is g...

The fur trade played a large role in the early history of Canada. It opened up the country, created new communities and led to the further exploration of North America. Archaeologists have retrieved many artifacts from places like old trading posts.

On November 11th, many Canadians take a moment to remember the soldiers who died fighting for Canada. The main ceremony takes place at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, but many other ceremonies are held across the country.

Aboriginality re-imagines the strength and spirit of First Nations culture through narrative mediums that connect urban First Nations youth to their rural ancestral histories. Dallas Arcand, world champion hoop dancer and hip-hop artist, is inspired by both new and traditional elements of First N...

In ati-wîhcasin (It's Getting Easier) filmmaker Tessa Desnomie celebrates the life and times of her grandmother, Jane Merasty. Born and raised on the trapline, this Woodlands Cree woman witness's significant changes over her 80 years.

O Mother, Where Art Thou? by filmmakers Paul John Swiderski takes stock of his adoptive family and the security and well-being that they have always provided for him. However, he begins to wonder about his biological family.

Life Givers: Honouring Our Elders and Children is a film by Janine Windolph that testifies to the need to grieve and to honour the memory of loved ones.

In The Power of a Horse, filmmaker Cory Generoux deals with the scars that racism left on his life - both as its recipient and perpetrator.

The Canadian Arctic is one of the world's last great wilderness regions and is facing pressures concerning natural gas exploration. The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, the largest construction project in Canada in more than a century, will bring natural gas from the Far North to Alberta's Tar Sands fo...