Project to identify Indigenous people in old photos makes its way to northern Ontario | CBC News

A Library and Archives Canada project to identify Indigenous people in old photos has made its way to northern Ontario this month.

Project Naming started in 2002 as a collaboration between the archives, the government of Nunavut and Nunavut Sivuniksavut , a college for Inuit based in Ottawa, to identify people from the territory.

Beth Greenhorn, the acting manager of online content with Library and Archives Canada, said throughout the late 1800s and early 20th century Indigenous people were often not identified in photographs, which are now part of the archives.

“A part of it was a language barrier where photographers, who were largely from southern Canada, couldn’t speak or understand Inuktitut, which is the language spoken in Nunavut,” said Greenhorn.

She said there was also a prevailing attitude from non-Indigenous people at the time that First Nations, Métis and Inuit people would be integrated into Western society and lose their Indigenous identity.

“I suspect that, you know, part of that idea was to westernize them and give them Western European names,” Greenhorn said.

“And they just didn’t take the time to record their traditional names in their traditional languages.”

Thanks to outreach on social media, the archives have been able to connect with the ancestors of the people in those old photos and identify them.

“I think it’s really important to add names to faces and give people back their identity and a sense of dignity,” Greenhorn said.

For non-Indigenous people who work at Library and Archives Canada, she said it’s also an act of truth and reconciliation to restore the identities of Indigenous people in its collection. 

In 2015, Project Naming expanded outside of Nunavut, and has shared historical photos of Indigenous people from other parts of Canada as well.

This December the project is collaborating with Nishnawbe Aski Nation for a special focus on Treaty 9, which covers First Nations in the James Bay and Hudson Bay watersheds in Ontario’s far north.

The project is featuring 26 photos taken in the region on its Facebook page throughout the first half of December.

In some cases, people in the photos have already been identified, and in others Project Naming is asking for the public’s help to put a name to a face.

“Overwhelmingly people are so grateful to be able to reconnect with photographs from their past,” Greenhorn said.