Aborigines of Canada, Alaska and Greenland
Language, not politics, drew the lines on this map. Published in the 1st Edition of the Atlas of Canada in 1906, this map colours the territory held by 11 aboriginal groups across the northern half of the continent, grouping them by native linguistic family rather than by province or treaty boundary.
The cartography records what the surveyors of the day understood: large uninhabited stretches through the Arctic islands and Greenland, southern Canada marked where Indians were living on reserves, and scattered points noting the remnants of the once powerful Huron-Iroquois at Jeune Lorette, plus two small bands of Iroquois near Edmonton and on the head waters of the Athabaska River. The Pacific coast of British Columbia carries a greater number of linguistic families than all the rest of Canada combined, and the map makes that density immediately visible.
Map Shop reproduces this Natural Resources Canada plate in the following formats:
- Paper
- Laminated
- Mounted to foam core
- Framed in black or walnut molding
A strong reference piece for history teachers, university departments, library and museum walls, and collectors of early Canadian cartography.

