The trappers of Patuanak: toward a spatial ecology of modern hunters

Jarvenpa, Robert

Book

The trappers of Patuanak: toward a spatial ecology of modern hunters

National Museums of Canada • (67) • Published In 1980 • Pages: xv, 258

By: Jarvenpa, Robert.

Abstract
In this work the author develops an analytical framework dealing with the spatial arrangement of human populations as a fundamental form of ecological adaptation to the natural environment. Here the '…geographical mobility of commercial fur trappers and fishermen from the English River Chipewyan community of Patuanak, Saskatchewan is employed as a variable for explaining the organization of economic-subsistence cycles and ongoing processes of settlement system change' (p. iii). The author discusses various forms of social adaptation in the trapping work force which represents a complex system of adjustments from the traditional family-camp organization to that of the newly-evolving all-male trapping partnerships. Although in the overview current trapping activities still reflect the traditional use of the ecosystem highly valued in Chipewyan culture, the spatial organization of production represented in such activities are not in total conformity with Western ideas of economic 'rationality'. With this in mind Jarvenpa attempts '…to assess the longer-run adaptiveness of trapping culture in view of imminent industrial development: (p. iii). In addition to the detailed data on trapping and the trapping economy, there is also much useful information in this source on geography, flora, fauna, climate, the annual cycle of events, family income, and the diet.

Climate

Topography and geology

Production and supply

Income and demand

Travel