From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Aboriginals: Algonquians/ Plains/Eldon Yellowhorn
The archaeological data that describe the physical environment and material culture of the plains appear in scholarly journals like Plains Anthropologist, the Canadian Journal of Archaeology, and American Antiquity. Occasional papers like Dog Days in Southern Alberta (Edmonton, 1986) examine specific regions in greater detail. The early natural environment of the Plains Indians is portrayed in R.C. Harris, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada: From The Beginning to 1800 (Toronto, 1987), which brings together the expertise of researchers in history, ethnology, and archaeology.
The languages of the Plains Algonquians have been studied by several scholars. D.G. Franz analyses Blackfoot language in Blackfoot Grammar (Toronto, 1991), and, in collaboration with a native speaker, N.J. Russell, he has produced an English/Blackfoot dictionary, Blackfoot Dictionary of Stems, Roots, and Affixes (Toronto, 1989). G.L. Piggott and A. Grafstein’s An Ojibwa Lexicon (Ottawa, 1983) is a technical examination of the Ojibwa language prepared for linguists. H.C. Wolfart and J.F. Carroll also have been active in Cree language studies; they are authors of an accessible guide, Meet Cree: A Guide to the Cree Language (Edmonton, 1973).
Ethnographic and historical material generated by people active in the fur trade is reproduced by the Champlain Society in two volumes: Journals and Letters of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de La Vérendrye and His Sons ... (Toronto, 1927) and David Thompson Narrative, 1784– 1812, edited by J.B. Tyrell (Toronto, 1916). Missionaries like J.D. McLean who lived among the Plains Algonquians also committed their reflections to print; see, for example, McLean’s The Indians: Their Manners and Customs (Toronto, 1889). Literate natives published works as well, such as The Traditional History and Character Sketches of the Ojibwa Nation (London, 1850; repr. Toronto, 1972) by George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh). Some ethnographic work on the Blackfoot was published by the American Bureau of Ethnology, including J.C. Ewers, The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture (Washington, D.C., 1955).
The experience of the Plains Algonquians in the fur trade is studied in A.J. Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade (Toronto, 1974). Sarah Carter’s Lost Harvests (Montreal, 1990) and H. Buckley’s From Wooden Ploughs to Welfare (Montreal, 1992) examine the failure of government policy on prairie Indian reserves. An important thesis by D.G. Mandelbaum, “Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative study” (University of Regina, 1979), explores the customs of the Plains Cree. Recently, some native people have published their own intepretations of their traditional culture: for example, P. Bullchild in The Sun Came Down (San Francisco, 1985).
P. Brizinski has contributed an important volume on native studies in Canada, Knots in a String (Saskatoon, 1993), while A.D. McMillan, Native Peoples and Cultures in Canada: An Anthropological Overview (Vancouver, 1995), includes a section on the Plains Algonquians.
