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First Nations governments are the smallest units of government among the aboriginal people of Canada who are registered under the Indian Act of 1876. At least fifty groups of aboriginal people throughout Canada are represented among the First Nations. These people form more than six hundred generally small communities, each of which is operated by a First Nations, or band, government. An elected chief and councilors run these forms of government. The leaders oversee all aspects of public life in their communities and work closely with federal government agencies that provide aid and regulation. In the twenty-first century, the First Nations government system has been praised for empowering aboriginal people, but it has also been criticized for inefficiencies. Map of the dominant self-identified ethnic origins in Canada of ancestors per census division; First Nations in brown. By Earl Andrew at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Headquarters for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in Ottawa. User:SimonP [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Haida are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest who live primarily on the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia and the southern section of Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. The ancestors of the Haida settled in the region thousands of years ago. Their society is clan-based and divided into two social units. The Haida are accomplished woodcarvers who express their family lineages through traditional wooden totem poles that can reach more than one hundred feet tall. Ceremonial canoe from Haida Gwaii - Queen Charlotte Islands By Susan Hubbard [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons A Haida House exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology at University of British Columbia. By Leoboudv (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons