Wyandot of Canada

Quebec, the center of French colonization in Canada, was located in the territory of the native people known as the Wyandot, or Wendat.

The French colonists called these people Hurons, which means bristly or ugly.

The Wyandot were resourceful farmers and hunters. They also led active village lives.

They taught the first French settlers in Canada how to hunt seal and trap beaver, how to use snowshoes and how to ride toboggans. The introduced the French to game that the French named La Crosse.

Hochelaga

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, about one in 20 of the Wyandot lived in the village of Hochelaga, near what is now Montreal.

Hochelaga was surrounded by wooden palisades. Galleries were manned with guards.

The village's main street led to a central plaza. The home of the chief was at the end of this plaza.

People lived in longhouse, made up of wood and bark. Each longhouse held up to twenty families, and had an open fire and several rooms.

Women worked at home and in the fields. They grew beans, corn, pumpkin, sunflowers, tobacco and hemp.

Men hunted, fought and bartered surplus corn in exchange for meat and furs.

Village feasts - to celebrate a successful fish catch or deer hunt, or to say goodbye to a hunting expedition - could last up to two weeks.