Unit 4: Northern Historical Geography Flashcards
What is Beringia and what is its significance in the history of Northern Canada?
Was a hypothesized land bridge 11,000 years ago that connected Alaska and Russia, allowing Old World hunters to migrate and populate NA.
How did the Thule culture differ from that of other Inuit?
Thule were the ancestors of the Inuit. There culture was more complex. Theory for why that is is because of scarcity that caused current Inuit to simplify and adapt in the second millennium. Igloos are something the Thule did not have. Inuit less dependent on whaling than Thule.
Explain why Europeans encountered an “empty” landscape in many parts of North America when they arrived.
Disease had wiped out an estimated 90% of the populations of groups before they had even set eyes on a European.
What is the basic thrust of Sahlins Stone Age Economics?
Based on calculations about the work required to produce sufficient food, fuel, and material goods, he argued that hunter-gatherers should be seen as the original affluent society since they spent proportionately much less work time and more leisure time compared to European peasantry and modern workers.
Where did Europeans first land on North America and where is the first identified settlement?
First Europeans on NA soil were Norsemen in the 10th century. The only confirmed Norse settlement is at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.
What effect did the collapse of the fur trade have on the residents of the North?
It was traumatic for Indigenous peoples as a great deal of them were dependent on its economy. Collapse coincided with the extension and elaboration of the welfare state for their communities.
What three events helped to increase interest in the Yukon Gold Rush?
- Coincided with the closing of the American frontier, providing Americans a new frontier to exploit.
- Coincided with an economic depression in most of the industrialized world.
- Yukon gold was placer gold which does not require hard rock mining techniques, allowing regular people to pan for it.
What was the general effect of the Yukon Gold Rush on Aboriginal peoples?
The Yukon Gold Rush was highly disruptive to the Aboriginal peoples of the region. Though many were able to become involved in the gold economy, the general effect was that the arrival of so many white men contributed to the loss of Indigenous control over traditional lands and disruption of their ways of life.
What was the primary reason for the first military expenditures in the North?
These military expenditures were spent on a line of Distant Early Warning radar stations which were designed to protect North America from the main Cold War threat – attach by long-range planes carrying nuclear bombs.
What were the general effects of military investment in the North?
The DEW line construction helped to open up the North through the development of required infrastructure, including landing strips, weather and radio stations, and stores.
Explain the general purpose of the Road to Resources program and how it worked.
Proposed by Diefenbaker, the program gave federal funding for new roads to potentially valuable natural resources in the northern reaches of provinces. The program was part of a rationale of a private capital model development favored by the federal government and was meant to entice private investors into investing in areas with access to these valued resources.
