Click here to read - The Government of Prince Edward Island

Traditional Ancestral Homelands of the
Mi’kmaq people
The Traditional Ancestral Homelands of the Mi’kmaq
People includes all of Prince Edward Island. In
Mi’kmaq, Prince Edward Island is known as Epekwitk
(pronounced E - PE - KWIT). Approximately 1,740
Mi’kmaq Aboriginal people continue to live on PEI.
In the early 1700’s the Mi’kmaq and the British
entered into peace, friendship, and trade treaties.
The covenant chain of treaty relationships continues
to this day. In 1982, the first Ministers of Canada
affirmed and recognized Aboriginal and Treaty rights,
now entrenched within the Constitution. In 1985, the
Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that the treaty
of 1752 is an existing treaty and protected under the
Constitution. The courts also acknowledged that an
Indian treaty is sui generis (unique).
In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada determined
in the Sparrow decision that the Fisheries Act and
Regulations were inconsistent with the Constitutional
guarantee of an Aboriginal Right to fish. The
Supreme Court in the Sparrow decision recognized
and affirmed the Aboriginal Right to access and use
natural life aquatic resources, which is protected
under section 35(1) of the Constitution Act of 1982.
Aboriginal Peoples use of resources is undertaken,
applying the principle of Netukulimk, a Mikmaq concept
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