Canadian Citizenship Test: Peoples of Canada practice questions

Keep three names together: First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Acadians and Loyalists are part of the country's story and are not a substitute for one of those three. Nunavut (1999) is a territory, not a province.

Question 1

Canada's three Indigenous peoples are First Nations, Inuit and

  1. Métis
  2. Acadians
  3. Loyalists
  4. Vikings

Answer: Métis

The three are First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Acadians descend from French settlers in the Atlantic region. Loyalists came north after the American Revolution. A Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows shows a Viking presence around the year 1000; that does not make Vikings one of the three Indigenous peoples.

Question 2

Nunavut, created in 1999, is

  1. a province with the same list of powers as Ontario
  2. a territory whose people are mostly Inuit
  3. a replacement for the province of Manitoba
  4. a neighbourhood inside Yellowknife

Answer: a territory whose people are mostly Inuit

Nunavut was separated from the Northwest Territories in 1999. It is a territory, not a province, and most of its people are Inuit. The name means 'our land' in Inuktitut. It did not replace Manitoba, and its capital, Iqaluit, is not part of Yellowknife.

Question 3

The name Canada comes from kanata, a word used by Iroquoian people of the St. Lawrence to mean

  1. the ice of the Arctic Ocean
  2. the Rocky Mountains
  3. a village or settlement
  4. the Pacific coast

Answer: a village or settlement

Jacques Cartier heard kanata, meaning a village or settlement, from Iroquoian people along the St. Lawrence in the 1530s, and the name spread to the country. It does not mean the Arctic ice, the Rockies or the Pacific. Those are later geographic labels from other regions.