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| The First Nations are the original inhabitants of Canada, which is a country located in North America. They have lived on this continent for thousands of years. "Six major cultural groups eventually developed in Canada". First Nations Found In The Pacific Rim Out of the hundreds and thousands of First Nation groups found in Canada, there are a few that can be found in British Columbia, a province of Canada. Here in British Columbia is where my ecozone - the Pacific Rim or the Pacific Maritime Ecozone - is found. The four major native groups that were established here were the "Tsimshian, Haida, Bella Coola, and the Nootka". Background Information On How The First Nations Came To Settle In Canada Now a bit of background information on how the First Nations came to Canada. Approximately 100 000 years ago, the last ice age began. It lasted for about 90 000 years, and ended around 10 000 years ago. During these 90 000 years, most of Canada was covered with glacial ice, which in some parts was more than 2km thick. The Pacific Rim is located where the Cordilleran Glacier had once been. Because so much of the oceans' water was in the form of ice, the level of the seas dropped. In some places the ocean bottom became dry land. The Bering Strait between Asia and North America was one of these dry areas. The exposed land became a "bridge between the two continents". Bering Land Bridge "Most anthropologists believe that hunters followed wild animals across the Bering land bridge about 25 000 years ago." The Bering Land Bridge was "the part of the ocean floor between Alaska and Russia that was exposed several times during the last ice age. This bridge allowed people and animals to travel from Asia to North America." These people became the first people to live in the "Americas". Later generations of hunters travelled further south through an ice-free corridor between two ice sheets - the Cordilleran Glacier and the Continental Glacier. Some travelled as far south as South America. The descendants of the people who travelled over the Bering Land Bridger are the First Nations. REFERENCES: - Clark, Bruce W., and John K. Wallace. Third Edition: Canada Land of Diversity. Canada, Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice Hall Ginn. 1996 |
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