Based on R. D. Symon’s book North by WestBy Dorthea Calverley How can a story that spans the centuries, perhaps a hundred of them, be handed down by a people that had no written language? Said Morning Star Kissikowasis, the old, old blind Medicine man of the Saskatchewan prairies, “Such things are born in the… Read More

Calamai, Peter: Edmonton Journal, Feb 1973Adapted by Dorthea Calverley OTTAWA – The history of man in America has been pushed back another 10,000 to 15,000 years by dating of a bone tool and other artifacts discovered by Canadian scientists at Old crow in the Yukon. This major archeological find, reported in the influential journal Science, should… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyThe trails by which the Indians entered North America remind us of an old child’s game – a “paper chase” – in which bits of paper were thrown out in unlikely places to be found by the pursuers. We are almost sure from where the Indians started to populate Northwestern North America. It… Read More

From The Peace River Block News, October 9, 1974. “The remains of weapons used by prehistoric man about 10,000 years ago have been discovered in a part of British Columbia’s Peace River country that may be flooded by B.C. Hydro power projects. “It was a most exciting find,” said Knut Fladmark, archeology professor at Simon… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyA map showing the distribution of Beaver Indians in 1914 (Dr. Pliny Earle Goddard) shows them occupying both sides of the Peace River around Dunvegan and upstream from there as far as the Fort St John area, but not in large numbers. By 1887, from the personal observation of H.F. (Twelve-Foot) Davis, as… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley  We should never think of any tribe or family of Indians as confined to one area or location. Excavations of old campsites and grave sites reveal artifacts which show that even before the white man came the continent must have been laced with trails from the Arctic to theGulf of Mexico. Copper… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyColumbus is said to have given the name “Indians” to the aboriginal peoples he encountered in the Caribbean Islands. He believed that he had been successful in his voyage to find a new route to Asiatic India – hence his name for the people. Since Columbus’ day, the name has been applied to… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley  We have already told the Cree’s legend of their long migration from far beyond the Bering Strait to their final location on the prairies. Until a certain incident the name for the wanderers was simply the “the people.” When the long lost, abducted Berry Woman returned to the people, with her seven… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyTRIBES A tribe may be defined as a body of people found together by a common culture and a common language and acting in concert towards all neighboring peoples. The Athapaskans do not qualify as a tribe under this definition because of the wide variations in culture and dialect found among them. BANDS… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley  Climate, plants and animals that provide food, and physical features like mountains and rivers, shaped the daily lives of the aboriginal peoples. These forces strongly affected their visible culture, which changed from time to time as they adopted new ways and skills, obtained new weapons, gained or lost territory or changed their… Read More