INDIGENOUS SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES ON THE CANADIAN SHIELD

A CASE STUDY FROM THE KENNAWAY SETTLEMENT

Abstract

Haliburton County, Ontario, is an area that has received little historical attention, despite the fact that it was one of Ontario’s last “frontier” regions before Canada opened its western provinces to settlement. A collection of historical records, including censuses, tax assessments, journals, published histories, and even archaeological excavations, feature one of Eastern Haliburton’s earliest recorded permanent inhabitants, a Huron-Wendat man named Bernard Naraseau. This innovative figure established a unique blend of subsistence strategies that combined selected elements of traditional and Western approaches, during a critical time when the region was transitioning from Crown Lands to colonial settlement. The picture of the life way that emerges is one that defies historical binary definitions of First Nations hunting vs. settler farming. Far from practising a simple blend of the two styles, Naraseau was a
selective farmer and tender of livestock, choosing only some of the crops and animals that his Euro-Canadian neighbours did, and his choices happened to be the most economical for the rocky soils of the Canadian Shield. Naraseau was also an occasional canoe guide, assisting colonial surveyors who mapped out lots and concessions in the new townships. Finally, rather than conforming to colonial stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples being generalized hunters, the data reveals how Naraseau scrupulously hunted certain game animals for specific economic purposes, including bone marrow extraction and bi-annual fur sales. Strategies like Naraseau’s cannot be readily fit into traditional categories, and studies like this one can continue to interrupt the oversimplified binary we
sometimes find in historical narratives that counterpose First Nations and settler subsistence practices, into more complex visions that help us to comprehend increasingly accurate historical realities.