First Nations in Alberta

First Nations in Alberta are indigenous peoples who live in the Canadian province of Alberta. The First Nations are those peoples (or nations) recognized as Aboriginal peoples in Canada excluding the Inuit and the Métis. According to the Canadian census, in 2001 a population of 84,990 Albertans reported a "North American Indian" (i.e. First Nations) identity, rising to 116,670 in 2011 or 13.7% of all First Nations people in Canada, giving Alberta the third largest First Nations population among the provinces and territories (after Ontario and BC). From this total around half of the population lives on an Indian reserve (58,782 Registered Indians lived on-reserve in Alberta in 2005). The rest of the population lives off-reserve, amongst the rest of the Canadian population. Many of these are urban Aboriginals living in cities, especially Edmonton (the provincial capital) which had an off-reserve status population of 18,210 people in 2011, the second highest for any city in Canada (after Winnipeg). Besides this there were 19,945 people in Alberta in 2011 who claimed a North American Indian identity on the census but are not part of the official Indian Register; such people are commonly called "non-status Indians". There are 48 First Nations or "bands" in Alberta (in the sense of governments made up of a council and a chief), belonging to nine different ethnic groups or "tribes" based on their ancestral languages.

There are a variety of ways of classifying the various First Nations groups in Alberta. In anthropological terms there are two broad cultural groupings in Alberta based on different climactic/ecological regions and the ways of life adapted to those regions. In the northern part of the province the Subarctic peoples relied on boreal species such as moose, woodland caribou, etc. as their main prey animals, extensively practised ice fishing, and utilized canoes, snowshoes, and toboggans for transportation. The Plains Indians of the south lived primarily in a prairie grasslands environment (but with access as well to the nearby Rocky Mountains) and relied on the plains bison (or "buffalo") as their major food source and used the travois for transportation. Peoples in the central, aspen parkland belt of Alberta practised hybrid cultures with features of both the aforementioned groups.

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