Epekwitk â "lying in the water" in Mi'kmaq. 2 First Nations: Lennox Island and Abegweit. The smallest province with the smallest Indigenous population â and a land dispossession story that mirrors the national pattern in miniature.
PEI is covered by the Peace and Friendship Treaties â which never ceded Mi'kmaq land. The entire island is unceded Mi'kmaq territory (Epekwitk, part of Mi'kma'ki). The Mi'kmaq were dispossessed of their land through British colonial settlement, with the entire island parceled out to British landlords in the 1767 lottery. Mi'kmaq were pushed to tiny reserves â Lennox Island (580 hectares) and Scotchfort (Abegweit, 287 hectares) â on an island of 566,000 hectares. That's 0.15% of the island for the people who were here for 11,000 years.
The small scale of PEI's Indigenous population means the issues receive less national attention, but the proportional dispossession is among the most complete in Canada. The Mi'kmaq of PEI are not a footnote. They are a people whose homeland was entirely taken without consent, without treaty, and without compensation.
PEI's small scale means Indigenous peoples access provincial services alongside everyone else â and face the same healthcare and housing crises. Lennox Island and Abegweit have community health centres but rely on provincial services for specialized care. Education is primarily through provincial schools. The small population means fewer culturally specific services. Housing on Lennox Island has improved but remains below provincial standards.
PEI scores 34.2 â an F+. The province's Mi'kmaq population is small enough to be invisible in national discussions, but their dispossession is total. An entire island â 11,000 years of Mi'kmaq presence â reduced to two small reserves totaling less than 900 hectares. The Peace and Friendship Treaties established coexistence, not surrender. PEI's reconciliation challenge is smaller in scale than other provinces but no less fundamental: the entire island is unceded Mi'kmaq land, and the province has never meaningfully addressed that reality.
"We were here for eleven thousand years. They gave us back a fraction of a percent and called it generous."