National Indigenous History Month 2023 – Week 4: Languages, cultures and arts

June is National Indigenous History Month (NIHM), an opportunity to acknowledge and honour the history, culture and resilience of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation.

We encourage all Canadians to take time to learn more about Indigenous Peoples and to explore our collective past. Knowing and acknowledging the past and its ongoing impacts is the first step towards healing and reconciliation.

2023 weekly themes

Each week will be dedicated to a different theme to highlight specific aspects of Indigenous history, cultures and perspectives.

• June 1–6: Women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people
• June 5–11: Environment, traditional knowledge and territory
• June 10–18: Children and youth
• June 19–25: Languages, cultures and arts
• June 26–30: Reconciliation

Week 4: Languages, cultures and arts

To launch this fourth week with the theme of languages, cultures and arts, discover the archives we preciously preserve in our collections:

• We Are Here: Sharing Stories: Library and Archives Canada houses a vast collection of rare published heritage, including thousands of documents in Indigenous languages. Many of these documents were written and published by church ministries for use in missions and residential schools. Despite this, we hope that the preservation and sharing of these documents will contribute to the vital work of language revitalization.
• Blog: Exploring Indigenous peoples’ histories in a multilingual e-book—Part 1
• Blog: Exploring Indigenous peoples’ histories in a multilingual e-book—Part 2
• E-book: Nations to Nations: Indigenous Voices at Library and Archives Canada
• Blog: Tunniit/Tattoos: The Complicated History of Photographing Inuit Tattoos
• Blog: The Art of Dene Handgames / Stick Gambling / ᐅᐨᘛ / oodzi
• Blog: The Canadian Eskimo Arts Council — Defining Inuit art
• Blog: Archives as resources for revitalizing First Nations languages
• Blog: Origins of Cree syllabics
• Blog: Dene language groups
• Blog: Hiding in Plain Sight and the Métis Nation: How did it all start?
• Flickr Album: The Dene

LAC acknowledges that a great deal of records related to First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation peoples held in our collections lack important contextual information. As outlined in Vision 2030: A strategic plan to 2030, LAC is doing more to place collections in context, making them easier to understand by setting them in a wider historical and cultural landscape. We do this in various ways, including by offering theme-based collections and programs and by encouraging a variety of uses for the collections. The projects We Are Here: Sharing our Stories and Listen, Hear Our Voices support this commitment.

Reconciliation will not be accomplished overnight and is a journey that requires commitment from all people in Canada.

#NIHM2023

Associated links

• National Indigenous History Month
• Images for National Indigenous History Month (rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca)
• Project Naming | Facebook / Project Naming (canada.ca) / @project_naming
• Resources related to NIHM week 1: Women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people
• Resources related to NIHM week 2: Environment, traditional knowledge and territory
• Resources related to NIHM week 3: Children and youth
• Resources related to NIHM week 4: Languages, cultures and arts
• Resources related to NIHM week 5: Reconciliation