Great Whale River

The Great Whale River (French: "Grande rivière de la Baleine") is a 724 km long river in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada. It flows from Lac Bienville west to Hudson Bay. Its drainage area encompasses 42,700 km² and its average discharge is about 680 cubic metres per second. [ [http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/facts/rivers.html/document_view The Atlas of Canada Site] ]

Both the northern village of Kuujjuarapik, whose inhabitants are mostly Inuit, and the Cree village of Whapmagoostui are situated at the mouth of the river, near the site of the former RCAF Station Great Whale River. The villages were formerly known collectively as "Great Whale River" and "Poste-de-la-Baleine."

The state-owned power utility, Hydro-Québec, planned in the early 1970s to construct three hydroelectric power stations on the Grande-Baleine River as a part of the James Bay Project. [ [http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/pr/agr/que/jbnq5_e.PDF James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement, ch. 8.1.3, pp. 114-115.] ] Although detailed planning for the project was only begun in 1986, opposition from Crees, Inuit, environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the Friends of the Earth and other activists led the Premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, to announce in November 1994, that the project was suspended indefinitely.

ee also

*List of Quebec rivers

ources

* [http://www.waseskun.net/cree.htm Cree Legal Struggle Against Great Whale Project]
* [http://expert-eyes.org/whale.html The Great Whale Project]

Further reading

* Honigmann, John Joseph. "Social Networks in Great Whale River; Notes on an Eskimo, Montagnais-Naskapi, and Euro-Canadian Community". [Ottawa] : Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources, 1962.
* Johnson, William D. "An Exploratory Study of Ethnic Relations at Great Whale River". Ottawa, Canada: Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre, Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources, 1962.
* Masty, David, Sr. 1991. "Traditional Use of Fish and Other Resources of the Great Whale River Region". "Northeast Indian Quarterly". 8, no. 4: 12-14.
* Wills, Richard H. "Conflicting Perceptions Western Economics and the Great Whale River Cree". [Canada?] : Tutorial Press, 1984. ISBN 0961307668

External links

* [http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/rivers/grwhal.htm General description, map and images]
* [http://www.niagara.co.uk/gwrphotos.htm Photos]
* [http://www.thunderbird.edu/about_thunderbird/case_series/1997/_97-0020.htm Hydro-Québec and the Great Whale Project] . Environmental/development negotiations; stakeholder analysis.