Archives and Primary Sources

Avataq Cultural Institute

Available to all

Three separate collections are available through the website: an archeology collection, an art and artifact collection, and archives of drawings, historical photos, and oral histories. The institute also houses a library that holds more than 4,000 publications, mostly concerning Nunavik, as well as information about other Arctic regions and indigenous peoples.

Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program

Available to all

Archival collection on polar exploration and research developed by Ohio State University. Include virtual exhibitions.

Canadiana

Available to all

A virtual library dedicated to Canadian history, providing access to prints from the era of early European settlers to the mid-20th century. Various collections related to autochthony and northernness are included, including those of the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Jesuit Relations and Native Studies (formerly called Early Canadiana Online)

Corpus of Inuit Prints : Woodblock print (BAnQ)

Available to all

Corpus of prints produced by Manuel Lau and published under the aegis of Puvirnituq Printshop. Since the inception of the Experimental Print Program in Cape Dorset, Puvirnituq has been one of four Inuit communities that has produced collections of prints on a regular basis. These works allow us to appreciate this practice of Inuit art which traditionally puts the world around it first. It includes, among other things, a tribute to the internationally renowned artist Davidialuk Alaasuaq Amittukinuit.

Corpus of Inuit prints: linocut (BAnQ)

Available to all

Selection of prints made by Aisa Amittuq, son of the famous Inuit artist Davidialuk Alasua Amittu. Although Aisa is best known for his stone carvings, mostly carved from the dark stone found near Akulivik and Puvirnituq, this corpus bears witness to his experience in recording narrative accounts from Inuit oral tradition on prints in two dimensions.

Corpus of Inuit prints: silkscreen (BAnQ)

Available to all

This selection of prints illustrates screen printing practices within the Inuit community of Povungnituk during the 1980s, spurred on by the Cape Dorset art movement. This so-called contemporary artistic phase was characterized by a culture in full transition and coincided with the gradual "opening" of the North after the Second World War. This corpus highlights birds, marine mammals and land animals from the Arctic.

Corpus of Inuit Prints: Stone Engraving (BAnQ)

Available to all

This selection of prints illustrates stonecutting practices within the Inuit art community of Povungnituk in the early 1980s. Featuring prominent Inuit printmakers of the time, it highlights the complex self-representation of the experience. Nordic, the founding myths of Inuit culture as well as traditional hunting and fishing techniques.

Early Books in Aboriginal Languages : Witnesses of Founding Cultures (BAnQ)

Available to all

Published between 1556 and 1900, these works contain concrete traces of the linguistic heritage of the first Aboriginal peoples who inhabited what is now Quebec: Iroquoian languages (including Mohawk and Wendat), Algonquian (including Algonquin, Abenaki, Cree, Innu, Mi'kmaq) as well as Inuktitut. These are alphabet books, syllabaries, grammars, dictionaries, lexicons, reading books and other textbooks. This collection also sheds light on the history of relations between indigenous communities and European settlers.

Early encounters in North America : peoples, cultures, and the environment

Concordia (Reserved Access) | Laval (Reserved Access) | McGill (Reserved Access)

Letters, stories, accounts and images from more than 1400 authors about the first contacts between First Peoples and Europeans, between 1534 and 1850. Provides access to documents by people, places, years, type of environments, etc.

Empire Online

Concordia (Reserved Access) | Laval (Reserved Access) | McGill (Reserved Access) | UQAM (Reserved Access)

Manuscripts, printed works, correspondence, maps, photographs, etc., related to history, politics, culture and colonial societies from the collections of 23 libraries in the United States and the United Kingdom. Opportunity to filter by geographic region (North America).

Fauna boreali-americana, or, The zoology of the northern parts of British America : containing descriptions of the objects of natural history collected on the late northern land expeditions under command of Captain Sir John Franklin, R.N (BAnQ)

Available to all | UQAM (eBook)

Three volumes of the scientific work Fauna Boreali-Americana, written by John Richardson with contributions from William Swainson and Reverend William Kriby. John Richardson participated in Sir John Franklin's first two Arctic expeditions as a physician and naturalist. Published between 1829 and 1837, each of these three volumes is dedicated to a specific animal species: insects, birds and quadrupeds. This work is an interesting example of Predarwinian natural history, containing detailed descriptions of the appearance, anatomy and behavior of different species. Descriptions of species sometimes include details about their interactions with humans.

Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters

Concordia (Reserved Access) | INRS (Reserved Access) | Laval (Reserved Access) | McGill (Reserved Access)

Printed books, government, legal and commercial documents, newspapers and magazines, maps, photographs, etc., dealing with the theme of the borderlands and colonization during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Includes 18 archival collections from the United States and Canada, including the Hudson's Bay Company Archives (Archives of Manitoba) and thematic guides on First Nations, exploration, expeditions and travel.

Hubert Wenger Eskimo Database

Available to all

Bibliography of literature reporting first contact and first observations of the Inuit, hosted by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Illustrations taken from Quebec periodicals: expeditions in the arctic archipelago (BAnQ)

Available to all

Dating from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, these illustrations taken from Quebec periodicals shed light on the wave of expeditions devoted to reaching the northern summit with a view to claiming sovereignty over the North Pole. There are old engravings of the ship Fram on which the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen made the first transpolar drift, an image illustrating the departure of Captain J. E. Bernier during his Canadian boreal expedition, etc.

Illustrations taken from Quebec periodicals: Inuit mores and customs (BAnQ)

Available to all

19th century documentary iconography corpus. These images, taken from Quebec magazines: L'Opinion publique (1870-1883), Monde Illustré (1884-1902,1907) and L'Album Univers (1902-1907), paint a picture of the cultural and social life of the Inuit in a time when photographs were uncommon.

Images du Nord et de l’Arctique

Available to all

Photographs and postcards of the Université Laval library, representing First Nations and Inuit, settlers, missionaries, explorers and landscapes from Canada's Arctic and Northern Quebec. Includes photographs of the Judicial Expedition in 1923 at Pond Inlet (Baffin Island), with Captain Bernier.

Indigenous Cultures (Musée McCord Stewart)

Available to all

5800 archaeological and historical objects from the McCord Stewart Museum documenting the material culture of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada, primarily, but also of Siberia and Greenland.

Indigenous Peoples. North America

McGill (Reserved Access)

Includes extensive monograph, manuscript, newspaper, periodical and photograph collections. McGill has text mining rights for Gale Databases for our researchers. Please contact a librarian for more information.

Inuit print - Growth: I (BAnQ)

Available to all

Print by Ludmila Armate, painter of Polish origin working in Quebec, published in a collection of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. In the late 1990s, at the instigation of his coming to Kinngait Studios, the Inuit of Cape Dorset were introduced to large-format drawings with oil sticks for the first time.

North American Indian thought and culture

Concordia (Reserved Access) | Laval (Reserved Access) | McGill (Reserved Access)

Biographies, stories, oral histories, speeches, photographs, drawings and audio files related to Indigenous history and culture in North America. Provides access to documents by people, places, years, type of environments, etc.