Hornaday River

Hornaday River

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

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

Run

The river rises in the western Kitikmeot region of Nunavut twenty kilometers south of the Bluenose Lake ( Takipaq ). It first flows west- southwesterly direction in the Northwest Territories in, while on the southern edge of the Melville Hills within the country along the Inuvialuit, south of the border of the Tuktut - Nogait National Park. It then flows in a northwesterly direction to the park, with its gorges and waterfalls are the attractions of the park. The river finally joins the Darnley Bay of Amundsen Gulf, and fourteen miles east of the Inuit village of Paulatuk.

The main tributary of the river is the Little Hornaday River north west of the park. Other tributaries are First Creek, Second Creek, Aklak Creek, George Creek and Rummy Creek. Several lakes belong to the catchment area of the river, including Rummy Lake ( ⊙ 69.049722222222-123.685 ), Seven Islands Lake ( ⊙ 69.28382-123.00456 ) and Hornaday Lake. Overall, the Hornaday runs parallel to the Horton River to the west and to the Brock River to the east.

The lying at an altitude of 274 m above sea level, La Roncière Falls ( ⊙ 69.138055555556-122.87666666667 ) is a 23 m high waterfall south of the confluence of the Little Hornaday River. The Geographical Names Board of Canada has established the name in June 1952.

Natural history

The area is part of the natural environment of the Arctic, Interior and Hudson Platforms. The catchment area of the river comprises the area between the Great Bear Lake and the Arctic Ocean. For reaches of the river include a large valley, narrow gorges and a river delta, which extends into the Arctic Ocean. The soil is subject to a depth of two meters, the permafrost, making the ability to bind groundwater is minimal and the rain water flows directly into the river.

The flora is typical of a tundra, the vegetation consists mainly of grassland with reeds and lupins and some clusters of willows along the lower reaches of the river. While there are at nearby Horton River spruce forests, but not on the Hornaday River.

Lake trout live abundantly in the river. Your inventory is controlled by the Paulatuk. Commercial fishing took place 1968-1986, currently (2009) serves the fishing on the river, only the diet of the local population. Among the other species of fish in the river are Arctic whitefish, Arctic grayling, whitefish, burbot, Catostomus catostomus and nine-spined stickleback.

The Barren Ground caribou give birth to the west of the Hornaday and south of Little Rivers Hornaday their calves.

History

Cartography

The Rivière La Roncière -le Noury ​​was discovered in 1868 by Émile Petitot, a French Oblate missionary and significant ethnologist, cartographer and geographer of the Canadian Northwest. He traveled in 1875 most of the newly discovered river course and prepared a map. However Petitot admitted that he does not explored the lower reaches, as it was at the time of his journey under dense fog. Erroneously, he drew a the mouth of the river in Franklin Bay instead of the Darnley Bay. Petitot made ​​this error because he relied on hearsay, it may be left to the Hare Indians, who were traveling with him. His travelogue and his maps were published in the same year in Paris, for which he was honored by the Société de Géographie with a silver medal.

Because the mouth of the river, however, was mapped incorrectly, subsequent researchers have assumed that the Rivière La Roncière not exist.

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

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

While the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-1918, the south bank of the Darnley Bay in 1915 was mapped, including the mouth of the Hornaday River, but even this expedition did not follow the river upstream. The resulting map shows the Hornaday River more than a short river which some kilometers inland springs from a large lake.

It was not until 1949, when it was shown as a 305 km long river because of aerial photographs of the Royal Canadian Air Force in a topographical study of the Hornaday River. These aerial photographs were not used to the 1952 topographic map of Canada's Department of Mines and Technical Surveys to customize, showing the flow as a short river again.

After he examined the maps and aerial photography and the area again in 1951 with the geomorphologist J. Ross Mackayerkundete, finally confirmed J. Keith Fraser of the geographical division of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, the Rivière La Ronciere actually exists and that he now considered Hornaday River is called.

Archeology

In the course of the Hornaday River were recorded hundreds of archaeological finds, which date from the time of the Thule culture or even earlier. Many of the places were occupied only occasionally, either seasonally or over a short period of time. Among the finds are aligned rows of stones, fireplaces, hunting shelters, facilities for drying meat and other artifacts, some parts of dog sledding.

Mining

An old mine for coal ( ⊙ 69.1667-123.3667 ) with open pit and shaft mining is located on the western shore 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.