Design implications of site selection and resource utilization of Lake Wapisu by the Cree of Nelson House Manitoba and a useable shoreline classification system for the Boreal Forest

• Main Author: Orecklin, Melvin Robert
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 1976
• Subjects: Nelson House; Churchill; Churchill River
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/6171

The thesis deals with the utilization of the land-water interface by the Cree of Nelson House in Northern Manitoba. Section I is an analysis from the pre-historic to the near present through library resources and interviews. The Cree through time have been limited to an increasingly smaller area of resource utilization. Within these boundaries, they continue to utilize the resources, on similar sites, in a manner resembling the pre-contact era, but with the incorporation of Euro-Canadian technology. Section II investigates present day sites on Lake Wapisu through field research, and analyses the ecological, socio-economic, and cultural factors of site selection. Section III is a revamp of the Newbury Shoreline Classification System of 1968, in order that it may be more easily applied for use in physical impact and assessment studies. Section IV extrapolates the material in the earlier sections, in a set of planning implication, which include schooling, community siting, and archaeology, and the effect on the utilization of the hinterland by the Nelson House people by the Churchill River Diversion.