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TitleTraditional resources use in Fort McKay and neighbouring communities archival sampling program
Publication TypeReport
Year of Publication1998
Publication Languageen
Keywordsfur trade, Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), traditional resource use
Abstract

This report was prepared to determine the contribution that historical research among the voluminous records of the Hudson's Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg could make to a study of traditional resources use in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. The working hypothesis was that as fur trading dominated natural resources use throughout the study area since 1783, the meticulous records kept by the Hudson's Bay Company relating to fur harvests and food provisioning might shed considerable light on evolving patterns of resources consumption and land use during more than a century and a half. Sampling was done in the records of fur trading posts located throughout the study area in the period 1783 to approximately 1930. In all, 493 linear centimetres of records were sampled. The research focused on Account Books, Reports and Districts, and Post Journals, in that order. Although many other types of records are available for many posts, they were judged to be of minimal importance to determining the nature of the trade. The sampling revealed that the records of Fort Chipewyan are of significant value in terms of documenting traditional resource use within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. This is largely because Fort Chipewyan functioned as the administrative and trade centre of the regional study area since 1783. While incomplete, its records nonetheless permit defensible analysis of changing natural resource harvesting and use patterns over more than a 150-year period. Of less value are those of Fort McKay and Fort McMurray, which form a subset of the Fort Chipewyan data.

Notes

Consultant commissioned by Suncor Inc. Oil Sands Group. This report summarizes the archive research of Hudson's Bay Company records for the study of traditional resource use in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo

Topics

Archival sampling program

Locational Keywords

Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Fort McKay, Alberta, and Fort Chipewyan, Alberta

Group

CEMA

Citation Key24882

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