I'd get "First Peoples," and I haven't been to Canada since I was 14.

Canadian Indian and/or Cree from Montreal.

Canadian Indian and/or Cree from Montreal.

Depends on what you're saying, though. I used Cree as a specific example so I could avoid using the more general term for which I'm searching.

I'd get "First Peoples," and I haven't been to Canada since I was 14.

That's cool. I've been greeted with blankness both here and in Michigan. Enough that I ended up using "Canadian Native American" quite like an idiot.

I haven't heard "First Peoples" before, but I like it. And this one explanation is all I'll need to be able to get any future references.

That said, I thought "Native American" was supposed to refer to the American continents (both of them), so would be a reasonable synonym.

I thought "Native American" was supposed to refer to the American continents (both of them), so would be a reasonable synonym.

So far, that "American" has been a touchy subject for many of my Canadian friends. Because it's been so tightly associate to the US, that they furrow their brows when it's applied to Canada except in the term "North American."

Yeah, I can see that. I can't think of an ideal solution that is not wordy and cumbersome or else relies on the listener being informed.

That grammars a mess. Sorry.

I was trying to work out what to call a "Canadian Indian" over here. In Montreal, it was pretty simple: First Peoples. But no one here gets that.

Canadian Indian is not a term I've ever heard before. It's either "First Nations" or "Aboriginal" (our government in the province has an Office of Aboriginal Affairs). "First People" implies that they were the first people here, which they were.

The federal department is still called "Indian Affairs" and the term "Status Indian" is still relevant in Canada since these are used to encompass Treaties under the "Indian Act."

That's why I put "Canadian Indian" in quotes. Because it's the literal translation, but not actually real.

I'd love it if we could go with Autochtones. I just adore saying it.

As a West Indian who grew up delineating myself from the East Indians, I look at the unadjectived Indian and my brain does a spinny thing.

What about Native Canadian? Or Canadian First Nations?

I think the problem is that all the words are fraught with trying to group all Native North Americans in one group, when they identify with their own specific communities. The word Indian seems to be consider pretty perjorative in Canada. And so does aboriginal, but in this province we have an office of Aboriginal Affairs, and I took a workshop "Aboriginal Perceptions" last year from the Diversity Management Advisor in our dept., who happens to be Mi'kmaq. I try to be specific to whatever First Nation the person I am talking about comes from.

As a West Indian who grew up delineating myself from the East Indians, I look at the unadjectived Indian and my brain does a spinny thing.

My East Indian friends self identified as "brown" to avoid confusion with the Mi'kmaqs. (Or Micmacs, as they were known at the time.)