The relationship between Indigenous people of Canada and the European powers who occupied parts of it has been checkered with misunderstandings.

The doctrine of discovery is the basis of a fundamental and long-lasting misunderstanding. Jacques Cartier from France arrived in Gaspe in 1534. Many Canadians see that date as the beginning of Canada.  Not many indigenous people see it quite that way.  Canada—the land of Canada and its native people—were of course around long before then.

Some Europeans had this notion that they had “discovered the New World” and this gave them the right to do whatever they wanted here. They owned it because they discovered it. Frankly, this is a very peculiar idea.  No Europeans would have accepted it if the Indigenous people of the western hemisphere had imposed such a doctrine on them. It was absurd. But sometimes Europeans were absurd.

The inhabitants of Canada had a very different view of nature and land than the incoming Europeans had. As Quenton Condo, a young Mi’Kmaq man, from the Gaspe Peninsula, said on the CBC series Telling Our Story, on Gem, “We understood that land was not something that we owned. Land was something that we shared and occupied.”

In eastern Canada the St. Lawrence River where Cartier landed in Gaspe, and which Christiane and I had just driven through, was a major river used by many different First Nations. Many of them wanted to reach the fishing resources beyond the mouth of the river.  Europeans when they “discovered” them realized how stunning they were. Some of the Europeans said you could fish by dropping a basket into the water and pulling out fish. Lots of fish. That may be legend, but has at least an element of truth, as legends often do. It was a bountiful resource. As Condo said, “It was a resource shared among many different nations.”

When Cartier landed and installed a large cross, the Iroquois Chief Donnacona quickly understand what Cartier was doing with that cross. He made it clear to Cartier and his sons that this was not acceptable. This land was not Cartier’s for the taking. It wasn’t anyone’s land for the taking.   Of course, to make matters even worse, Cartier showed him what Europeans were really like. Cartier and his 2 sons kidnapped him and took him to France as a captive souvenir. That was not very nice.

Cartier was not even the first European to arrive. Basque fishermen had been fishing in the area for year already, and centuries earlier Vikings visited. Cartier did not discover anything at all.

As Condo said,

“When Cartier arrived, he did not discover anything. We discovered a bunch of people on a boat starving and lost. We saved them, because that’s who we are. We are not savages. We saw other humans who were in a bad position. We took them in and fed them.”

This happened over and over again in Canada in many encounters between Indigenous People and different First Nations.  The newcomers had amazing technologies but they had a very poor understanding of what was needed to survive in Canada. First Nations, over and over again, rescued the newcomers from impending starvation. Added to that the newcomers failed to understand that the Indigenous people expected reciprocity. That was part of their spiritual lives, That was how they did things and it was what they expected of the people they helped.  They helped others and in turn expected to be helped when needed. Really, that w as not an unreasonable expectation. Who thinks otherwise?

Yet repeatedly the newcomers proved ungrateful and failed to reciprocate. Instead, they tried to take over.  I have heard this described like this: what would you think if a stranger appeared at your door in a winter storm and asked to sleep in your house for the night to save his life and then, after the storm was over, refused to leave. And not only that, the stranger then assumed control of your house and started to tell you what you had to do?  The answer is obvious. We would not tolerate that. We would certainly not consider the other civilized!