A cultural geography of northern Foxe Basin, N.W.T. ...

• Main Author: Crowe, Keith Jeffray
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Subjects: Foxe Basin; walrus*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0102285; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0102285

The shallow post glacial sea of northern Foxe Basin contains a large walrus herd. Complemented by other game resources, the herd has supported human settlement for about four thousand years. During sequent occupance of the region by different prehistoric hunting cultures there was adaptation to changes in climate, game resources and land forms. Despite variations in environment, there was remarkable continuity in the coastal settlement pattern. From a "core" area of relatively dense and permanent settlement, concentric areas decreased in viability towards the regional margins, where adverse ice conditions were a major deterrent to settlement. Whaling fleets visited the regions adjacent to northern Foxe Basin from about 1840 to 1910. Although the region itself was barred to whaling ships by pack ice, the whole Melville-Borden culture territory, including northern Foxe Basin, suffered from the social and ecological disequilibrium caused by whaling activity. At the end of the whaling era the rifle and whaleboat ...