User:Generalissima/Great Whale River
The Great Whale River (French: Grande rivière de la Baleine, Cree: Whapmagoostui or Kwakutuy, Inuktitut: Kuujjuaraapiup Kuunga)[1] is a river in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada. It flows 726 kilometres (451 mi) from its source at Lake Saint-Luson to the Hudson Bay, passing through Lake Bienville and entering the Hudson at Manitounuk Sound near the villages of Kuujjuarapik and Whapmagoostui (collectively referred to as W-K).
Etymology
[edit]The Inuktitut name for the river is Kuujuaraapiup Kuunga, meaning "little great river". Both the French and English names for the river are translations of the Cree name, Whapmagoostui, meaning "place of the beluga whale". An alternate Cree name, Kwakutuy, means "place of many sharp stones".[2][3][4]
In 1744, Hudson's Bay Company traders Thomas Mitchell and John Longland recorded the river in their journals as the "Great White Whail River" and "Great Whale River" respectively. The name Rivière Abchigamich was historically applied to the portion of the river between Lake Bienville and the mouth of the Coats River, with the downstream portion named the Rivière de la Grande Baleine. The Commission de géographie du Québec dropped this terminology in 1947, in favor of applying Rivière de la Grande Baleine to the full extent of the river; this erroneous translation of the Cree name for the Great Whale River (a mistake shared by the Little Whale River) was dropped in 1962, in favor of the present name, Grande rivière de la Baleine.[3]
Hydrology
[edit]Its drainage basin measures 16,764 sq mi (43,420 km2), almost three times the area of the adjacent Little Whale basin.[5]
Course
[edit]The river's source lies at Lac Saint-Lusson in central Nord-du-Québec at 54°49′40″N 70°32′00″W / 54.82768°N 70.5333°W.[6]
Geology
[edit]Human history
[edit]The river's mouth has been occupied by Paleo-Inuit and Inuit peoples for several millennia, and serve as a traditional hunting ground for beluga whales. One site located a short distance from W-K has been dated to around 3,800 years before present, and is the earliest known Paleo-Inuit site in Nunavik. The nearby Dorset culture site of GhGk-63 dates to between 2,000 and 1,800 years before present. Archaeological excavations of the site revealed the remains of nine structures and around 12,000 lithic artifacts.[2][7]
Hudson's Bay Company traders Thomas Mitchell and John Longland made contact with Cree residents of the lower Great Whale River in June 1744. A trading post was built at the W-K site in 1756, leading to sporadic European presence in the area. The post became a permanent instillation in 1857, and continued to be occupied until 1940. Hudson's Bay Company records note that Cree generally stayed in the area from June to August. Some were employed by the company as hunters.[7]
Great Whale Project
[edit]Ecology and environment
[edit]Much of the Great Whale basin lies within the sporadic permafrost zone, with permafrost occupying less than 2% of land surface. This increases closer to the coast, where it enters a discontinuous permafrost zone characterized by under 50% of surface area is covered by permafrost.[8]
References
[edit]- ^ Nozais et al. 2021, p. 2.
- ^ a b Nozais et al. 2021, p. 328.
- ^ a b Commission de toponymie du Québec 1996.
- ^ Bhiry et al. 2011, p. 183.
- ^ Morin et al. 1979, p. 19.
- ^ Canadian Geographical Names Database.
- ^ a b Bhiry et al. 2011, p. 197.
- ^ Nozais et al. 2021, p. 329.
Bibliography
[edit]- Bhiry, Najat; Delwaide, Ann; Allard, Michel; Bégin, Yves; Filion, Louise; Lavoie, Martin; Nozais, Christian; Payette, Segre; Pienitz, Reinhard; Saulnier-Talbot, Émilie; Vincent, Warwick F. (2011). "Environmental Change in the Great Whale River Region, Hudson Bay: Five Decades of Multidisciplinary Research by Centre d'Études Nordiques (CEN)". Écoscience. 18 (3). doi:10.2980/18-3-3469. ISSN 1195-6860.
- Morin, G.; Charbonneau, R.; Fortin, J. P.; Lardeau, J. P.; Potvin, L.; Sochanska, W. (1979). Étude Hydrologique de la Grande Rivière de la Baleine et de la Petite Rivière de la Baleine. Quebec: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique. ISBN 2891460960.
- Nozais, Christian; Vincent, Warwick F.; Belzile, Claude; Gosselin, Michael; Blais, Marie-Amélie; Canário, João; Archambault, Phillipe (2021). "The Great Whale River Ecosystem: Ecology of a Subarctic River and its Receiving Waters in Coastal Hudson Bay, Canada". Écoscience. 28 (3–4): 327–346. doi:10.1080/11956860.2021.1926137.
- "Lac Saint-Lusson". Canadian Geographical Names Database. Retrieved September 1, 2024.
- "Grande rivière de la Baleine". Commission de toponymie du Québec (in French). 1996. Retrieved September 1, 2024.
Not in use yet
[edit]- Ingram, R. Grant (1981). "Characteristics of the Great Whale River Plume". Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 86 (C3): 2017–2023. doi:10.1029/JC086iC03p02017. ISSN 2169-9275.
- Cooke, Alan; Holland, Clive (1971). "Chronological List of Expeditions and Historical Events in Northern Canada. V. 1790–1821". Polar Record. 15 (99). doi:10.1017/s0032247400062124.
- Cooke, Alan; Holland, Clive (1973). "Chronological List of Expeditions and Historical Events in Northern Canada. X. 1896–1902". Polar Record. 16 (104). doi:10.1017/S0032247400063658.
- Cooren, François (2002). "Translation and Articulation in the Organization of Coalitions: the Great Whale River Case". Communication Theory. 11 (2): 178–200. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2001.tb00238.x.
- Desbiens, Caroline (2007). "'Water All around, You Cannot Even Drink': The Scaling of Water in James Bay/Eeyou Istchee". Area. 39 (3): 259–267. JSTOR 40346041.
- Goldstein, Steven J.; Jacobesen, Stein B. (1988). "REE in the Great Whale River Estuary, Northwest Quebec". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 88 (3–4). doi:10.1016/0012-821X(88)90081-7.
- Ingram, R. Grant; Larouche, Pierre. "Variability of an under-ice river plume in Hudson Bay". Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 92 (C9): 9541–9547. ISSN 2169-9275.
- Houck, Oliver A. (2006). "O Canada!: The Story of Rafferty, Oldman, and the Great Whale". Boston College International and Comparative Law Review. 29 (2): 175–244.
- Hudon, Christine (1994). "Biological Events During Ice Breakup in the Great Whale River (Hudson Bay)". Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 51 (11). doi:10.1139/f94-246.
- Hudon, C.; Morin, R.; Bunch, J.; Harland, R. (1996). "Carbon and Nutrient Output from the Great Whale River (Hudson Bay) and a Comparison with Other Rivers Around Quebec". Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 53 (7). doi:10.1139/f96-080.
- Hülse, Peter; Bentley, Samuel J. (2021). "A 210Pb Sediment Budget and Granulometric Record of Sediment Fluxes in a Subarctic Deltaic System: The Great Whale River, Canada". Coastal and Shelf Science. 109: 41–52. doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2012.05.019.
- Martin, Thibault (2011). Martin, Thibault; Hoffman, Steven M. (eds.). Power Struggles: Hydro Development and First Nations in Manitoba and Quebec. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. doi:10.1515/9780887553561. ISBN 9780887553561.
- Owczarek, Piotr; Opała-Owczarek, Magdalena; Boudreau, Stéphane; Lajeunesse, Patrick; Stachnik, Łukasz (2020). "Re-Activation of Landslide in Sub-Arctic Areas due to Extreme Rainfall and Discharge Events (the Mouth of the Great Whale River, Nunavik, Canada)". Science of the Total Environment. 744. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140991.
- Peters, Evelyn J. (1999). "Native People and the Environmental Regime in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement". Arctic. 52 (4): 395–410. JSTOR 40511754.