Indigenous Arts & Stories - About and Contact us

Indigenous Arts & Stories

Indigenous Arts & Stories (formerly the Canadian Aboriginal Writing and Arts Challenge) was born in 2005 out of the success of Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada’s Past published by Doubleday Canada in which nine leading Indigenous authors from across the country, including Tantoo Cardinal, Tom King and Drew Hayden Taylor, contributed a short fictional story about a defining moment in Indigenous history. The program quickly became the largest and most recognizable creative writing competition in Canada for Indigenous youth.

In 2010, Historica Canada (formerly The Historica-Dominion Institute) announced the expansion of the program into arts, making the competition available to a new audience of Indigenous youth – those who are not writers, but instead express themselves through painting, drawing and photography. We believe that the expanded program gives start to the next generation of both great Indigenous authors and artists. Indigenous Arts & Stories has earned large scale support from the Indigenous arts and literary community, including those that comprise the patrons and advisory committee. More than 3,000 emerging Indigenous writers and artists from every province and territory in Canada have participated in the contest since 2005.

The program is organized by Historica Canada, the largest independent organization devoted to enhancing awareness of Canadian history and citizenship. For more information, visit HistoricaCanada.ca.

We would like to thank the ongoing support of our sponsors: Indigenous Services Canada, TD Bank Group, Canada’s History magazine and Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP.

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  Northern Lights 2 photo by Spencer Wynn

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  Northern Lights in Yellowknife photo by Vincent Demers