Nations of This Land

Try Nations of This Land in 10 seconds

Tap a nation to find its homeland. Eight nations, four regions. The land decides the home. Just to touch — nothing is recorded.

Learn — lessons that teach first, best in this order

1. 1Lesson 1Start hereMany nations, many waysLonghouses, seasonal camps, snow houses. Meet the nations who were here first, and see why each home fit its landTeaches: Nations of this land before 1713You will use: a map · a sort · questions · cases · an inquiryOntario A3.1Test yourself on lesson 1 →
2. 2Lesson 2ReadyBefore the shipsCorn went north and furs came south. Find the trade routes, the Great Law of Peace, and how nations differed from each otherTeaches: Trade, treaties and differences before the shipsYou will use: a cause chain · a sort · an inquiry · four voices · casesOntario A3.2, A3.7Test yourself on lesson 2 →

Play with it — any time, nothing recorded

• LabJust playSeasons LabPlan a family’s year: sugar bush, fish camp, rice beds, winter hunt. Do the stores last until spring?
• GameJust playNation MatchA home, a food, a council. Match eight ways of life to six nations — the clue is always the land
• StoryRead and decideThe Sugar BushThe sap is running. So is the calendar.

Why it matters today

• The land acknowledgement at school

  When your school names the nation whose land it stands on, this world is why. Those nations are not history — they are neighbours.

• Names on the map

  Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, Ontario itself: words from the languages of this world. You say them every day.

• Corn, beans, squash

  The Three Sisters in a school garden are the same crops that fed longhouse villages of a thousand people.

Words you will meet

Tap a word. The lessons explain each one the first time it appears.

• confederacy

  Several nations joined under one agreement, each still running its own affairs. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy joined five nations under the Great Law of Peace.

• clan mother

  A senior woman who leads a clan and, among the Haudenosaunee, chooses the chiefs — and can remove one.

• longhouse

  A long wooden house, often as long as a hockey rink, home to several related families. Wendat and Haudenosaunee villages were made of longhouses.

• wigwam

  A dome-shaped home covered in birchbark or mats, quick to build at each seasonal camp.

• alliance

  An agreement between nations to help each other, in trade or in war.

• surplus

  More than you need — extra that can be stored or traded. Wendat farms grew a surplus of corn and traded it north.

What Ontario asks

The 2018 curriculum expectations this world teaches, in the Ministry’s own words. 3 of the course’s 35.

• A3.1 identify major Indigenous nations that came into contact with European settlers and/or explorers prior to…

  identify major Indigenous nations that came into contact with European settlers and/or explorers prior to 1713 in what would become Canada (e.g., Great Lakes–St. Lawrence region : some of the many nations were Abenaki, Algonkin, Haudenosaunee, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Potawatomie, Wendat, Weskarini; northern Ontario: some of the nations were Cree and Ojibwe; Atlantic Canada: some of the many nations were Beothuk, Innu, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Wolastoqiyik; Arctic: some of the nations were Inuit and Dene), and describe key characteristics of selected nations (e.g., with respect to language; religious/spiritual beliefs and ceremonies; governance structures; food and clothing; roles of men, women, and children; the role and significance of arts and crafts)

• A3.2 describe some significant interactions among First Nations and between First Nations and Inuit before contact…

  describe some significant interactions among First Nations and between First Nations and Inuit before contact with Europeans (e.g., with reference to trade, alliances and treaties, and other instances of cooperation; competition between First Nations for control of waterways)

• A3.7 describe some significant differences among Indigenous peoples and between selected Indigenous and European…

  describe some significant differences among Indigenous peoples and between selected Indigenous and European communities in what would eventually become Canada (e.g., with reference to governance and economic organization; spiritual and/or cultural practices; land use/ownership; attitudes towards the environment; the roles of men, women, and children), and identify some of the reasons for these differences (e.g., climate ; availability of resources and arable land ; the culture , customs, and economic and political system in the mother country; individualistic versus communal world views; familiarity with the land and its resources)