Why Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day Matters: A Mi’kmaw Reflection from Tanka Fund’s Team
Today is Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is observed each year on June 21 to recognize and celebrate the history, cultures, and contributions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.
Our Marketing Director Phillip Gaudon, a Mi’kmaw L’nuk from the Port au Port Peninsula, shares a powerful reflection below that traces the enduring presence and cultural resilience of Mi’kmaw communities along Newfoundland’s west coast. Through stories of ancestral travel routes, intercultural kinship with Acadian settlers, and the fight for recognition, Phillip illustrates how Mi’kmaw identity continues to evolve while remaining deeply rooted in tradition. His message honors a history shaped not only by struggle but by strength, survival, and the revival of culture through community leadership and national recognition.
Key Points:
Mi’kmaw Homeland and Ancestral Highways
For generations, the Gulf of St. Lawrence served as a central travel route for Mi’kmaw families, connecting Cape Breton and Newfoundland as part of a unified territory called Mi’kma’ki.Interwoven Mi’kmaq-Acadian Histories
Starting in the 1700s, Mi’kmaw and Acadian communities formed strong cultural and familial bonds, reflected today in shared surnames and the peninsula’s unique bilingual designation in 1971.Legacy of Sylvester Joe
In 1822, Mi’kmaw hunter Sylvester Joe guided explorer William Cormack across Newfoundland’s interior, preserving ancestral knowledge through the first written mapping of the region.Cultural Revitalization and Community Leadership
In the 1970s, Chief Adolph Benoit helped rekindle cultural practices—such as language, drumming, and community gatherings—uniting families under the Port au Port Indian Band.Recognition of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation Band
In 2011, the Canadian government officially recognized over 23,000 members of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation, granting access to cultural funding and treaty-based rights long held in memory.
Read full story below
Kwe’ and hello! I’m Phillip Gaudon, a Mi’kmaw L’nuk who grew up where the Atlantic wind shapes the limestone cliffs of Port au Port. Each swell that rolls onto our beaches carries an echo of the journeys, languages, and friendships that have bound my people to this coast for centuries. On National Indigenous Peoples Day, I invite you to trace those echoes with me.
For countless generations, Mi’kmaw families treated the Gulf of St. Lawrence as a single living highway, paddling in rhythm with the seasons between Cape Breton and Newfoundland. Fishing, hunting, gathering medicines—these were not separate expeditions but threads in one vast homeland called Mi’kma’ki.¹
When Acadian fishers began dropping anchor in St. George’s Bay and Port au Port in the 1700s, two worlds blended rather than collided. Mi’kmaw and French tongues shared campfires, marriages stitched families together, and surnames like Benoit, Gallant, and Jesso still tell the story.² So resilient was that blended identity that in 1971 the peninsula became Newfoundland’s only officially designated bilingual district—proof that dialogue can outlast decree.³
Our inland trails hold stories too. In 1822, Mi’kmaw hunter Sylvester Joe guided explorer William Cormack clear across the island. With nothing but memory and ancestral science, Joe mapped rivers, mountains, and muskeg that outsiders had never set eyes on. His footsteps became the first written description of Newfoundland’s interior.⁴
Though colonization dimmed the visible flame of culture, it never put it out. In 1972, Chief Adolph Benoit gathered west-coast families under the Port au Port Indian Band, reigniting language classes, drum groups, and Mawio’mi gatherings.⁶ Today, if you wander through Stephenville or Corner Brook on a summer evening, you might hear hand drums answering one another across the bay.⁷
That enduring heartbeat found new strength on 22 September 2011, when the Government of Canada recognized the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation Band. More than 23,000 founding members—my own family among them—were finally acknowledged in nine wards, including Port au Port. With recognition came access to cultural funding, language revitalization, and treaty-based rights that our ancestors had safeguarded in memory alone.⁸
From the first Mi’kmaq-Acadian kinships of the 1700s, through Sylvester Joe’s map-less journey across the island, to Chief Adolph Benoit’s fight for recognition and the day the Qalipu order was signed, our west-coast story is built on resilience and reinvention. This culture isn’t locked away like a museum piece—it moves like the Atlantic at our doorstep, always in motion, always coming back stronger.
Wela’lin—thank you for walking this shoreline with me.
Sources
Benoit First Nation. “Local Mi’kmaq History” & “Band History.” benoitfirstnation.ca [6],[2]
Heritage Newfoundland & Labrador. “The History of the Newfoundland Mi’kmaq.” heritage.nf.ca [1]
Benoit First Nation. “Mi'kmaq – Port au Port Designated Bilingual District (1971).” benoitfirstnation.ca [3]
Dictionary of Canadian Biography. “JOE, SYLVESTER (Joseph Sylvester, Joseph Silvester).” biographi.ca.([biographi.ca][4])
Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation Band Order (SOR/2011-180).Government of Canada, laws-lois.justice.gc.ca [8]
Tulk, Janice E. “Cultural Revitalization and Mi’kmaq Music-Making.” Newfoundland & Labrador Studies, 2006. journals.lib.unb.ca [7]
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