Heritage Community Foundation Presents
Alberta Online Encyclopedia

Trappers, Hunters, and Gatherers

The people of all communities in this story are hunters, gatherers and producers of products from land resources. Their traditional hunting, gathering and production practices grew from dependence on the natural resources of the land, the bush, and the water. Their accounts, if not taken from their own experience, include information learned from Elders, and passed along in the stories told by their parents and grandparents.

- Terry Garvin, from Carving Faces, Carving Lives: People of the Boreal Forest

Archie BurkeFrom 1954 to 2000, Terry Garvin undertook a massive effort to record, in text and in photographs, the lives of traditional hunters and trappers living in the bushlands of the northwest boreal forest. Over the years, Mr. Garvin gathered numerous stories of some of the individuals he encountered and learned from along the way. Some of the stories were gathered in great detail, while others came only in fragments. A few of these stories and pieces of stories can be found in this section of the website. A few of the individuals profiled are no longer living. Their knowledge and skills have passed with them, though reflections of what they knew are found in the images and words of Terry Garvin, and in the younger generations who benefited from their wisdom. Others profiled in this website are still living, and are facing the ongoing challenges of preserving their traditional folkways in a changing north.

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            For more on Aboriginal hunters and trappers in Canada’s northwest Boreal forest, visit Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
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