Indigenous Calendar

This calendar focuses on Canada. It lists national, provincial and territorial dates, together with international days that are widely marked here.

Most of these are not statutory holidays. Some are statutory in one jurisdiction and not in another — September 30 is a federal statutory holiday and a statutory holiday in Yukon, but an optional holiday in Alberta. Every entry states its own status, and where a day is a holiday in some places and not others, each jurisdiction is listed separately with its own source.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis are distinct peoples. Dates, practices and significance vary between Nations, communities and regions, and a day marked in one community may not be marked in another. For local cultural information, the Nation or organization concerned is the authority — not this page.

Nations and communities also hold treaty days, ceremonies and gatherings that are not listed here. An empty date on this calendar does not mean nothing is being observed.

Sources and methodology

Every entry was checked against a primary source — the Act that created the day, the government statutory-holiday list, or the department or organization that owns it. Each event carries the name and link of the source that was checked, the type of source, the date it was checked and a verification status. Where no authoritative source could be found for a date, it was left out rather than included on the strength of a secondary calendar site.

Dates are reviewed annually. Entries whose date is calculated rather than fixed — a particular weekday of a month, for example — are flagged for review so a changing date is never carried forward unchecked.

This list is not exhaustive. It is a starting set that Aboriginal Head Start can add to. If a date is missing or an entry needs correcting, please get in touch.