page_title: Miꞌkmaq
section_title: Mic-Mac hockey sticks
hierarchical_section_title: Miꞌkmaq / History / 19th century / Mic-Mac hockey sticks
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Mi'kmaq making hockey sticks from hornbeam trees (Carpinus caroliniana) in Nova Scotia.
context_page_description: The Miꞌkmaq or Miꞌgmaq are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas now known as Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the northeastern region of Maine. They call their national territory Miꞌkmaꞌki. The nation has a population of about 170,000, of whom nearly 11,000 speak Miꞌkmaq, an Eastern Algonquian language. Once written in Miꞌkmaq hieroglyphic writing, it is now written using most letters of the Latin alphabet.
  The Santé Mawiómi, or Grand Council, was the traditional senior level of government for the Miꞌkmaq people until Canada passed the Indian Act to require First Nations to establish representative elected governments. After implementation of the Indian Act, the Grand Council took on a more spiritual function. The Grand Council was made up of chiefs of the seven district councils of Miꞌkmaꞌki.
  In 2011, the Government of Canada announced recognition to a group in Newfoundland and Labrador called the Qalipu First Nation. The new band, which is landless, had accepted 25,000 applications to become part of the band by October 2012.
context_section_description: The Miꞌkmaq practice of playing hockey appeared in recorded colonial histories from as early as the 18th century. Since the nineteenth century, the Miꞌkmaq were credited with inventing the ice hockey stick. The oldest known hockey stick was made between 1852 and 1856. Recently, it was appraised at $4 million US and sold for $2.2 million US. The stick was carved by Miꞌkmaq from Nova Scotia, who made it from hornbeam, also known as ironwood.
  In 1863, the Starr Manufacturing Company in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia began to sell the Mic-Mac hockey sticks nationally and internationally. Hockey became a popular sport in Canada in the 1890s. Throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, the Mic-Mac Hockey Stick was the best-selling hockey stick in Canada. By 1903, apart from farming, the principal occupation of the Miꞌkmaq on reserves throughout Nova Scotia, and particularly on the Shubenacadie, Indian Brook and Millbrook Reserves, was producing the Mic-Mac Hockey Stick. The department of Indian Affairs for Nova Scotia noted in 1927, that the Miꞌkmaq remained the "experts" at making hockey sticks. The Miꞌkmaq continued to make hockey sticks until the 1930s, when the product was industrialized.
caption: Miꞌkmaq making hockey sticks from hornbeam trees (Ostrya virginiana) in Nova Scotia about 1890.
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