Hornaday River

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Hornaday River
Hornaday River

Hornaday River

Data
location Nunavut , Northwest Territories ( Canada )
River system Hornaday River
source 15 km southwest of Bluenose Lake ( Takipaq ), Nunavut
68 ° 5 ′ 9 ″  N , 119 ° 58 ′ 2 ″  W
Source height approx.  700  m
muzzle Amundsen Gulf Coordinates: 69 ° 21 ′ 2 "  N , 123 ° 46 ′ 35"  W 69 ° 21 ′ 2 "  N , 123 ° 46 ′ 35"  W
Mouth height 0  m
Height difference approx. 700 m
Bottom slope approx. 2.3 ‰
length 309 km
Catchment area 13,120 km²
Drain MQ
 52.2 m³ / s

Hornaday River (name variants: Big River , Homaday River , Hornaaa River or Rivière La Roncière-le Noury ) is a 309 km long river north of the Arctic Circle in Canada .

The upper reaches of a river, first explored in 1868 , was named Rivière La Roncière-le Noury in honor of Admiral Baron Adalbert Camille Marie Clément de La Roncière-Le Noury , President of the Société de Géographie . The lower reaches of a river discovered in 1899 was named Hornaday after the zoologist William Temple Hornaday . It was not until 53 years later that it was discovered that the Rivière La Roncière-le Noury ​​and the Hornaday River are identical rivers.

Run

The river has its source in the western Kitikmeot region in Nunavut , twenty kilometers south of Bluenose Lake ( Takipaq ). It initially flows in a west-southwest direction into the Northwest Territories , along the southern edge of the Melville Hills within the Inuvialuit country , south of the border of the Tuktut-Nogait National Park . It then flows through the park in a north-westerly direction, with its gorges and waterfalls being among the park's attractions. The river eventually flows into Darnley Bay in the Amundsen Gulf , fourteen kilometers east of the Inuit village of Paulatuk .

The main tributary of the river is the Little Hornaday River, northwest of the national park. Other tributaries include First Creek, Second Creek, Aklak Creek, George Creek, and Rummy Creek. Several lakes are also part of the river's catchment area , including Rummy Lake ( ⊙ ), Seven Islands Lake ( ⊙ ), and Hornaday Lake. Overall, the Hornaday runs parallel to the Horton River in the west and the Brock River in the east.

The at a height of 274  m above the sea level La Roncière If ( ⊙ ) are a 23 m high waterfall south of the junction of the Little Hornaday Rivers. The Geographical Names Board of Canada established the name in June 1952.

Natural history

The area belongs to the natural space of the Arctic, Interior and Hudson Platforms. The river's catchment area includes the area between Great Bear Lake and the Arctic Ocean. The course of the river includes a wide river valley, narrow gorges and a river delta that extends into the Arctic Ocean. The ground is subject to a depth of two meters to the permafrost , whereby the ability to bind ground is minimal, and the rain water flows directly into the river.

The flora is typical of a tundra , the vegetation consists mainly of meadows with reeds and lupins as well as some collections of willows on the lower reaches of the river. There are spruce forests on the nearby Horton River , but not on the Hornaday River.

Arctic char live abundantly in the river. Their population is controlled by the Paulatuk. Commercial fishing took place between 1968 and 1986, currently (2009) fishing on the river only serves to feed the local population. Other species of fish in the river include arctic whitefish , arctic grayling , great whitefish , burbot , Catostomus catostomus, and nine-spined stickleback .

The barrenground caribou give birth to their calves west of the Hornaday and south of the Little Hornaday River.

history

cartography

The Rivière La Roncière-le Noury ​​was discovered in 1868 by Émile Petitot , a French Oblate missionary and eminent ethnologist , cartographer and geographer of the Canadian north-west. In 1875 he traveled most of the newly discovered course of the river and made a map. Petitot admitted, however, that he was not exploring the lower reaches, as it was under thick fog at the time of his journey. He mistakenly drew the mouth of the river in Franklin Bay instead of Darnley Bay . Petitot made this mistake by relying on hearsay, possibly relying on the Hare Indians who traveled with him. His travelogue and maps were published in Paris that same year , for which he was honored with a silver medal by the Société de Géographie.

Because the mouth of the river was incorrectly mapped, later researchers assumed that the Rivière La Roncière did not exist.

Naturalist Andrew J. Stone of the American Museum of Natural History examined the shores of Franklin Bay and Darnley Bay in 1899. He discovered the mouth of a large river in Darnley Bay, but did not investigate its course. Stone named the river Hornaday River in honor of William T. Hornaday , director of the New York Zoological Society .

Between 1909 and 1912, Arctic explorers Vilhjálmur Stefánsson and Rudolph Anderson explored the two bays. In " The Stefánsson-Anderson Arctic expedition of the American museum: preliminary ethnological report " , Stefánsson stated that "... Rivière La Ronciere is shown on the map and that Rivière La Ronciere does not really exist". Stefánsson does not mention the river that Stone discovered in 1899.

During the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913–1918, the south bank of Darnley Bay was mapped in 1915, including the mouth of the Hornaday River, but this expedition did not follow the course of the river up either. The resulting map shows the Hornaday River farther out as a short river that rises a few kilometers inland from a large lake.

It was not until 1949 when aerial photographs by the Royal Canadian Air Force showed the Hornaday River to be 305 km long in a topographical survey. However, these aerial photographs were not used to produce the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys' topographic map of Canada in 1952, which again shows the river as a short flowing body.

After re-examining the maps and aerial photographs and exploring the area with geomorphologist J. Ross Mackay in 1951 , J. Keith Fraser of the geographic department of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys finally confirmed that the Rivière La Ronciere actually exists and that it now exists referred to as the Hornaday River.

archeology

Hundreds of archaeological finds have been recorded along the course of the Hornaday River, dating from the time of the Thule culture or even earlier. Many of the places were only inhabited temporarily, either seasonally or only for a short period of time. The finds include aligned rows of stones, fire pits, hunting shelters, facilities for drying meat and other artifacts such as parts of dog sleds .

Mining

An old mine for coal ( ⊙ ) with open pit and shaft mining is on the western bank of the Hornaday River, north of the confluence of George Creek and Rummy Creek, about 30 km southeast of Paulatuk. It was in operation from 1936 to 1941.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b G. Burton Ayles, Norman B. Snow: Canadian Beaufort Sea 2000: The Environmental and Social Setting . (PDF) In: ucalgary.ca (Ed.): Arctic . 56, no.Supp. 1, 2002, p. 9.
  2. ↑ a b Hornaday River (Nunavut and NWT) ( English ) oclc.org. Accessed on March 16, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / 0-tspilot.oclc.org.millennium.mohave.edu  
  3. ^ A b c d Richard Clarke Davis: Lobsticks and Stone Cairns: Human Landmarks in the Arctic ( English ). University of Calgary Press, 1996, ISBN 1895176883 , pp. 153-154.
  4. ^ Marc Stevenson: Survey of the proposed national park at Bluenose Lake . In: Northern Past Heritage Consultants . ucalgary.ca. 1991. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  5. ↑ a b c d DFO: Hornaday River Arctic Charr (PDF; 279 kB) In: DFO Science Stock Status Report D5-68 (1999) . 1999. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
  6. ↑ Tuktut Nogait National Park of Canada: Activities: Paddling ( English ) pc.gc.ca. Archived from the original on March 14, 2004. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 16, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pc.gc.ca
  7. ↑ La Roncière Falls ( English ) geonames.org. Retrieved March 16, 2009.
  8. ↑ Fraser (1952), p. 8
  9. ↑ a b J.K. Fraser: Identification of Petitot's Riviere La Ronciere-le Noury . In: ucalgary.ca (ed.): Arctic . 5, No. 4, December 1952, p. 227. Retrieved March 16, 2009.
  10. ↑ Fraser (1952), p. 8
  11. ^ Bluenose-West Herd ( English ) nwtwildlife.com. February 12, 2009. Retrieved March 16, 2009.
  12. ↑ Fraser (1952), p. 9
  13. ↑ Fraser (1952), pp. 1, 11
  14. ↑ Vilhjalmur Stefansson: My Life with the Eskimo ( English ). Kessinger Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1417923954 , p. 125 (accessed on March 16, 2009): " ... River la Ronciere is represented to be on the chart, and that the River la Ronciere is in fact non-existent "
  15. ↑ Farrar (1952), p. 5, Figure 3, " Portions of Anderson River Sheet (Revised 1945) ... showing the latest published mapping of the Horton, Hornaday and Brock Rivers ".
  16. ^ J. Keith Fraser: Activities of the Geographical Branch in Northern Canada, 1947-1957 . (PDF) In: ucalgary.ca (Ed.): Arctic . 10, No. 4, 1957. Retrieved March 16, 2009.
  17. ^ Fraser (1952), p. 1
  18. ↑ Stephen Savauge: Tuktut Nogait National Park Cultural Resource Inventory 2001 ( English ) 2001. Retrieved March 16, 2009.
  19. ↑ Hornaday River Coal Mine ( English ) nwtgeoscience.ca. Archived from the original on October 6, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 16, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ntgomap.nwtgeoscience.ca