A2. Inquiry: Community Challenges and Adaptations
Specific Expectations
A2.1
formulate questions to guide investigations into some of the major challenges facing various groups and communities in Canada from around 1780 to 1850 (e.g., isolation; climate; lack of access to medical care and medicine; law enforcement, or manufactured goods in isolated communities; encroachment of European settlers on First Nations territory; racism facing First Nations, Métis, and Black Loyalists; spread of diseases such as tuberculosis and smallpox among First Nations and Inuit communities; settler economics encouraging the overhunting of wildlife; unfair treaty-making processes) and measures taken to address these challenges
- What challenges did settlers experience when they lived far from towns? What challenges did settlers living in developing towns experience?
- What types of challenges were particular to First Nations people or African Canadians? What challenges were particular to settlers?
- What are some of the ways in which First Nations, Métis, and Inuit responded to challenges related to the climate and natural settings of the communities they established?
- How did the encroachment of European settlers on First Nations and Métis traditional territories in Canada affect the people living in those communities?
- How did Black leaders develop strong, vibrant communities that supported new settlers, despite the racism built into various local policies, laws, institutions, and governments?
A2.2
gather and organize information on major challenges facing various groups and communities, including at least one First Nation, Métis, or Inuit community, and on measures taken to address these challenges, using a variety of primary and/or secondary sources (e.g., settler journals, artefacts, newspapers, period paintings and drawings, historical fiction, oral histories)
- What do the journals of Elizabeth Simcoe, Catharine Parr Traill, or other settlers tell us about settlers’ dependence on First Nations medicine? About settlers’ responses to the natural environment?
- What sort of information can you get from period paintings and drawings about challenges in different parts of early Canada?
- How might you use historical fiction to help you understand the challenges facing new immigrants to Canada in this period?
- “This painting shows an Inuk man wearing snowshoes that are really big and have netting. They let people walk in deep snow without sinking down.”
A2.3
analyse and construct print and digital maps, including thematic maps, as part of their investigations into challenges facing various groups and communities, including at least one First Nation, Métis, or Inuit community, in Canada during this period, and measures taken to address these challenges (e.g., find main roads and canals on a digital thematic map showing transportation routes; plot settlements on a map in order to determine their proximity to water; compare a map showing precontact territories of First Nations to a map showing reserves in 1850; use Indigenous sources to construct a map of the seasonal encampments of a First Nation, Métis, or Inuit community that moved according to the availability of food sources)
- How could analysing a climate map contribute to your understanding of the challenges that settlers faced during winter in Lower Canada?
- As you plot the settlements on your map, what pattern is emerging? How did the settlement patterns of Europeans impact First Nations’ access to their territories?
- When reading this map, what do you notice about the Métis settlements that led to the Métis people eventually being called the Road Allowance People?
- On this map, where are the First Nations peoples’ settlements? Where are the European settlements? Why might we not see the Métis settlements?
- What do you notice about the precontact First Nations territories?
- When reading this map what do you notice about the location of the Black settlements in Ontario? Why might the settlements be located there?
- “The map I read helped me see that Quebec winters are colder and longer than in southern Ontario. It would have been hard for settlers in Lower Canada to stay warm and keep enough food for the winter.”
- “My map shows that many settler farms and villages are beside lakes or rivers.”
- “When I read the maps, I noticed that First Nations peoples were being isolated in places that didn’t have access to water, roads, or rivers. Some of them were moved to islands without a lot of natural resources or things that they could use to create their clothing or their homes.”
- “It’s hard to identify some Indigenous communities on old maps because some communities shared parts of their territory with other First Nations communities. And some communities moved with the seasons.”
- “I see that Métis often settled around the upper Great Lakes and in Northwestern Ontario. This makes sense because this is where the fur trading often took place.”
A2.4
interpret and analyse information relevant to their investigations, using a variety of tools (e.g., use timelines and maps to help them determine how European settlement affected the location and size of First Nations and/or Métis communities; create a matrix to help them analyse the different challenges communities faced and how they adapted to them)
- How could you use a cause-and-consequence organizer to help you identify the challenges facing and adaptations made by a community in early Canada? What other tools might help you analyse the information you have gathered?
- Why do you think all these settlements are located along waterways?
- What type of organizer could you use to identify the reasons why some Métis families lived in First Nations communities, others lived in European settlements, and some created their own communities?
A2.5
evaluate evidence and draw conclusions about some of the major challenges facing various groups and communities in Canada, including at least one First Nation, Métis, or Inuit community, during this period, and measures taken to overcome these challenges
- What are some adaptations that settlers made in response to the lack of manufactured products available in isolated settlements?
- What functions did a barn raising or quilting bee serve?
- How did some Black people in Nova Scotia respond to racism in that colony?
- How were treaties such as the Robinson-Huron Treaty and the Robinson-Superior Treaty intended to protect First Nations’ rights to land and self-government?
- Why were the Métis generally left out of the treaty-making process?
- “Water was very important to settler communities in the late 1700s. They used it to cook, drink, and wash their clothes. They needed it for their crops and animals. They travelled by boat, too, because there weren’t many good roads. So people chose to settle near lakes or rivers.”
- “Many First Nations communities were near water or river systems for agriculture and transportation reasons.”
A2.6
communicate the results of their inquiries using appropriate vocabulary (e.g., First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Upper Canada, Lower Canada, treaty, displacement, settler, refugee, Loyalist, allies, land grant, seigneurie, habitant, enslaved person, hardship, isolation) and formats (e.g., a comic book that shows settler life before and after the construction of roads; a poster that shows how First Nations learned from their long-standing relationship with their territories, focusing on plants or technologies; a drawing that shows how people adapted to the climate; a map showing how European settlement affected First Nations territories)