Misplaced Pages

#476523

42-701: Lake Athabasca ( / ˌ æ θ ə ˈ b æ s k ə / ATH -ə- BASK -ə ; French: lac Athabasca ; from Woods Cree: ᐊᖬᐸᐢᑳᐤ aðapaskāw , "[where] there are plants one after another") is in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake is 26% in Alberta and 74% in Saskatchewan. The lake is fed by the Athabasca River and other rivers, and its water flows northward via

84-428: A consonant , can be written four ways, each direction representing its corresponding vowel . Some dialects of Cree have up to seven vowels, so additional diacritics are placed after the syllabic to represent the corresponding vowels. Finals represent stand-alone consonants. The Cree language also has two semivowels . The semivowels may follow other consonants or be on their own in a word. The following tables show

126-434: A " Provincial Wilderness Park " in 1992. Lake Athabasca contains 23 species of fish, with a world record lake trout of 46.3 kilograms (102 lb) caught from its depths in 1961 by means of a gillnet . Other fish species include walleye , yellow perch , northern pike , goldeye , lake whitefish , cisco , Arctic grayling , burbot , white sucker , and longnose sucker . Cree language Endonyms are: Cree

168-614: A billion litres of slurry poured into the Plante and Apetowun Creeks. The plume of waste products then joined the Athabasca River, travelling downstream for a month before settling in Lake Athabasca near Fort Chipewyan , over 500 kilometres (310 mi) away. The Lake Athabasca Sand Dunes , the largest active sand dunes in the world north of 58°, are adjacent to the southern shore in Saskatchewan. The dunes were designated

210-465: A complex polysynthetic morphosyntax. A common grammatical feature in Cree dialects, in terms of sentence structure, is non-regulated word order. Word order is not governed by a specific set of rules or structure; instead, "subjects and objects are expressed by means of inflection on the verb". Subject, Verb, and Object (SVO) in a sentence can vary in order, for example, SVO, VOS, OVS, and SOV. Obviation

252-805: A full-stop glyph ( ⟨᙮⟩ ) or a double em-width space has been used between words to signal the transition from one sentence to the next. For Plains Cree and Swampy Cree , Standard Roman Orthography (SRO) uses fourteen letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet to denote the dialect's ten consonants ( ⟨p⟩ , ⟨t⟩ , ⟨c⟩ , ⟨k⟩ , ⟨s⟩ , ⟨m⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , ⟨w⟩ , ⟨y⟩ and ⟨h⟩ ) and seven vowels ( ⟨a⟩ , ⟨i⟩ , ⟨o⟩ , ⟨ā⟩ , ⟨ī⟩ , ⟨ō⟩ and ⟨ē⟩ ). Upper case letters are not used. For more details on

294-593: A work. The vowel ē /eː/ , used in southern Plains Cree, is always long and the grapheme ⟨e⟩ is never used. In northern Plains Cree the sound has merged with ī , and thus ⟨ē⟩ is not used at all. The use of unmarked ⟨o⟩ and marked ⟨ō⟩ for the phonemes /u/ and /oː/ emphasizes the relationship that can exist between these two vowels. There are situations where o can be lengthened to ō , as for example in ᓂᑲᒧ! nikamo! 'sing (now)!' and ᓂᑲᒨᐦᑲᐣ! nikamōhkan! 'sing (later)!'. In alphabetic writing,

336-464: Is also a key aspect of the Cree language(s). In a sense, the obviative can be defined as any third-person ranked lower on a hierarchy of discourse salience than some other (proximate) discourse-participant. "Obviative animate nouns, [in the Plains Cree dialect for instance], are marked by [a suffix] ending –a , and are used to refer to third persons who are more peripheral in the discourse than

378-564: Is believed to have begun as a dialect of the Proto-Algonquian language spoken between 2,500 and 3,000 years ago in the original Algonquian homeland , an undetermined area thought to be near the Great Lakes. The speakers of the proto-Cree language are thought to have moved north, and diverged rather quickly into two different groups on each side of James Bay . The eastern group then began to diverge into separate dialects, whereas

420-573: Is deeper), and the eighth largest in Canada. Water flows northward from the lake via the Slave River and Mackenzie River systems, eventually reaching the Arctic Ocean . Fort Chipewyan , one of the oldest European settlements in Alberta, is on the western shore of the lake, where the Rivière des Rochers drains the lake and flows toward Slave River , beginning its northward journey along

462-504: Is not phonologically transparent, which means gender must be learned along with the noun. As is common in polysynthetic languages, a Cree word can be very long, and express something that takes a series of words in English. For example: kiskinohamātowikamikw know. CAUS . APPL . RECP .place kiskinohamātowikamikw know.CAUS.APPL.RECP.place 'school' ( lit. 'knowing-it-together-by-example place') This means that changing

SECTION 10

#1732764830477

504-539: Is used in Eastern dialects where s and š are distinct phonemes. In other dialects, s is used even when pronounced like [ʃ] . ⟨l⟩ and ⟨r⟩ are used natively in Moose and Attikamek Cree, but in other dialects only for loanwords. The stops, p , t , k , and the affricate, c , can be pronounced either voiced or unvoiced, but the symbols used for writing these sounds all correspond to

546-534: Is used. John John cî Q kî-mîciso-w PST -eat- 3SG Obed Mountain coal mine spill On October 31, 2013, a waste pit at the Obed Mountain Mine failed near the town of Hinton in Alberta , Canada. Following the collapse of a tailings dam , up to 1 billion litres (260 million US gallons) of wastewater flooded into the nearby Athabasca River in what may have been

588-623: The Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake , Lake Athabasca is a remnant of the vast Glacial Lake McConnell . Tributaries of Lake Athabasca include (going clockwise); Fond du Lac River, Otherside River, Helmer Creek, MacFarlane River, Archibald River, William River, Ennuyeuse Creek, Dumville Creek, Debussac Creek, Jackfish Creek, Claussen Creek, Old Fort River, Crown Creek, Athabasca River, Colin River, Oldman River, Bulyea River, Grease River and Robillard River. Uranium and gold mining along

630-746: The Slave River to the Mackenzie River system, eventually reaching the Arctic Ocean . The name in the Woods Cree language originally referred only to the Peace–Athabasca Delta formed by the confluence of the Peace and Athabasca rivers at the southwest corner of the lake. Prior to 1789, Sir Alexander Mackenzie explored the lake. In 1791, Philip Turnor , cartographer for the Hudson's Bay Company , wrote in his journal, "low swampy ground on

672-644: The fur trade posits that the Western Woods Cree and the Plains Cree (and therefore their dialects) did not diverge from other Cree peoples before 1670, when the Cree expanded out of their homeland near James Bay because of access to European firearms. By contrast, James Smith of the Museum of the American Indian stated, in 1987, that the weight of archeological and linguistic evidence puts

714-469: The proximate third person". For example: Sam Sam wâpam- ew see- 3SG Susan- a Susan- 3OBV Sam wâpam- ew Susan- a Sam see-3SG Susan-3OBV "Sam sees Susan." The suffix -a marks Susan as the obviative, or 'fourth' person, the person furthest away from the discourse. The Cree language has grammatical gender in a system that classifies nouns as animate or inanimate. The distribution of nouns between animate or inanimate

756-492: The syllabaries of Eastern and Western Cree dialects, respectively: Speakers of various Cree dialects have begun creating dictionaries to serve their communities. Some projects, such as the Cree Language Resource Project, are developing an online bilingual Cree dictionary for the Cree language. Cree syllabics has not commonly or traditionally used the period ( ⟨.⟩ ). Instead, either

798-488: The y dialect, refer to their language as nēhi y awēwin , whereas Woods Cree speakers say nīhi th awīwin , and Swampy Cree speakers say nēhi n awēwin . Another important phonological variation among the Cree dialects involves the palatalisation of Proto-Algonquian *k : East of the Ontario–Quebec border (except for Atikamekw), Proto-Algonquian *k has changed into /tʃ/ or /ts/ before front vowels. See

840-565: The Canadian standard for potable water. As a result, residents were discouraged from drinking any of the Athabasca as well as watering any livestock or pets. By December 2013, as the plume reached Fort McMurray , government officials reported that water from the Athabasca was once again below safety thresholds for both wildlife and drinking water. Monitoring continued for at least two years, although First Nations representatives disputed

882-577: The Cree as far west as the Peace River Region of Alberta before European contact. The Cree dialect continuum can be divided by many criteria. Dialects spoken in northern Ontario and the southern James Bay, Lanaudière, and Mauricie regions of Quebec differentiate /ʃ/ (sh as in sh e ) and /s/ , while those to the west have merged the two phonemes as /s/ and in the east the phonemes are merged as either /ʃ/ or /h/ . In several dialects, including northern Plains Cree and Woods Cree,

SECTION 20

#1732764830477

924-778: The Plains Cree [j] that is [ð] in Rocky Cree as ⟨ý⟩ . Similarly, in dictionaries focused on Western Swampy Cree, Woods Cree may readily substitute ⟨ē⟩ with ⟨ī⟩ , while materials accommodating Woods Cree will indicate the Western Swampy Cree [n] that is [ð] in Woods Cree as ⟨ń⟩ . Atikamekw uses ⟨c⟩ [ ʃ ], ⟨tc⟩ [ t͡ʃ ], and ⟨i⟩ [ j ] (which also serves as ⟨i⟩ [ i ]). Eastern James Bay Cree prefers to indicate long vowels (other than [eː] ) by doubling

966-669: The South side with a few willows growing upon it, from which the Lake in general takes its name Athapison in the Southern Cree tongue which signifies open country such as lakes with willows and grass growing about them". Peter Fidler originally recorded the name for the river in 1790 as the Great Arabuska . By 1801, the name had gained a closer spelling to the current name—Athapaskow Lake. By 1820, George Simpson referred to both

1008-508: The dialects which use syllabics as their orthography (including Atikamekw but excluding Kawawachikamach Naskapi), the term Montagnais then applies to those dialects using the Latin script (excluding Atikamekw and including Kawawachikamach Naskapi). The term Naskapi typically refers to Kawawachikamach (y-dialect) and Natuashish (n-dialect). The Cree dialects can be broadly classified into nine groups. Roughly from west to east: This table shows

1050-501: The eastern boundary of Wood Buffalo National Park . The eastern section of the lake narrows to a width of about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) near the community of Fond du Lac on the northern shore then continues to its most easterly point at the mouth of the Fond du Lac River. Fidler Point on the north shore of Lake Athabasca is named for Peter Fidler , a surveyor and map maker for the Hudson's Bay Company . Along with other lakes such as

1092-432: The first month after the spill, water quality tests revealed the presence of metals and chemicals such as cadmium , arsenic, manganese , lead , mercury , and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in excess of limits for consumption or life along the first 40 km (25 mi) of the Athabasca River. Mercury, for instance, was found to be nine times higher than normal, while PAHs were at levels four times higher than

1134-409: The lake and the river as "Athabasca". The lake covers 7,850 square kilometres (3,030 sq mi), is 283 kilometres (176 mi) long, has a maximum width of 50 kilometres (31 mi), and a maximum depth of 124 metres (407 ft), and holds 204 cubic kilometres (49 cu mi) of water, making it the largest and one of the deepest lakes in both Alberta and Saskatchewan (nearby Tazin Lake

1176-407: The language phonetically. Cree is always written from left to right horizontally. The easternmost dialects are written using the Latin script exclusively. The dialects of Plains Cree, Woods Cree, and western Swampy Cree use Western Cree syllabics and the dialects of eastern Swampy Cree, East Cree, Moose Cree, and Naskapi use Eastern Cree syllabics . In Cree syllabics, each symbol, which represents

1218-410: The largest coal slurry spill in Canadian history. The river's waters experienced immediate spikes in arsenic , metals, and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Although the Athabasca was deemed safe for drinking and wildlife by the end of the year, the extent of the environment's recovery remained in doubt. Located about 30 km (19 mi) east of Hinton, the Obed Mountain Mine

1260-457: The long vowels /eː/ and /iː/ have merged into a single vowel, /iː/ . In the Quebec communities of Chisasibi , Whapmagoostui , and Kawawachikamach , the long vowel /eː/ has merged with /aː/ . However, the most transparent phonological variation between different Cree dialects are the reflexes of Proto-Algonquian *l in the modern dialects, as shown below: The Plains Cree, speakers of

1302-504: The mine had been reclaimed. On October   31, 2013, one of the mine's tailings dams failed, and between 600 million and one billion litres (160 to 260 million US gal) of slurry poured into the Plante and Apetowun Creeks. The plume of waste products then joined the Athabasca River, travelling downstream for a month before settling in Lake Athabasca near Fort Chipewyan , over 500 km (310 mi) away. In

Lake Athabasca - Misplaced Pages Continue

1344-470: The northern shore resulted in the birth of Uranium City, Saskatchewan , which was home to mine workers and their families. While the last mine closed in the 1980s, the effects of mining operations had already heavily contaminated the northern shores. The large oil sands mining nearby is suspected to have added to the current pollution levels in the lake. On October   31, 2013, one of Obed Mountain coal mine 's pits failed, and from between 600 million to

1386-494: The phonetic values of these letters or variant orthographies, see the § Phonology section above. The /ð/ sound of Woods Cree is written ⟨th⟩ , or ⟨ð⟩ in more recent material. Plains and Swampy material written to be cross-dialectical often modify ⟨y⟩ to ⟨ý⟩ and ⟨n⟩ to ⟨ñ⟩ when those are pronounced /ð/ in Swampy. ⟨š⟩

1428-511: The possible consonant phonemes in the Cree language or one of its varieties. In dictionaries focused on Eastern Swampy Cree, Western Swampy Cree may readily substitute ⟨sh⟩ with ⟨s⟩ , while Lowland Moose Cree may readily substitute ⟨ñ⟩ with their ⟨l⟩ . In dictionaries focused on Southern Plains Cree, Northern Plains Cree may readily substitute ⟨ē⟩ with ⟨ī⟩ , while materials accommodating Rocky Cree will indicate

1470-721: The rigour of the sampling program, its exclusion of data from sediment, and the lack of information made available to the public. In October 2015, the Alberta Energy Regulator corporation filed charges against the mine's operators, Sheritt Coal and Coal Valley Resources Inc., on several counts of violations of the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act , the Water Act , and the Public Lands Act which could have amounted up to

1512-493: The table above for examples in the * kīla column. Very often the Cree dialect continuum is divided into two languages: Cree and Montagnais. Cree includes all dialects which have not undergone the *k > /tʃ/ sound change (BC–QC) while Montagnais encompasses the territory where this sound change has occurred (QC–NL). These labels are very useful from a linguistic perspective but are confusing as East Cree then qualifies as Montagnais. For practical purposes, Cree usually covers

1554-444: The unvoiced pronunciation, e.g. ⟨p⟩ not ⟨b⟩ , ⟨t⟩ not ⟨d⟩ , etc. The phoneme /t͡s/ is represented by ⟨c⟩ , as it is in various other languages . Long vowels are denoted with either a macron , as in ⟨ā⟩ , or a circumflex , as in ⟨â⟩ . Use of either the macron or circumflex is acceptable, but usage should be consistent within

1596-418: The use of punctuation has been inconsistent. For instance, in the Plains Cree dialect, the interrogative enclitic cî can be included in the sentence to mark a yes–no question such that this is sometimes considered to be sufficient without including a question mark (?). However, in many modern publications and text collections ( cf. The Counselling Speeches of Jim Kâ-Nîpitêhtêw (1998) ) full punctuation

1638-466: The vowel, while the western Cree use either a macron or circumflex diacritic; as [eː] is always long, often it is written as just ⟨e⟩ without doubling or using a diacritic. While Western Cree dialects make use of ⟨o⟩ and either ⟨ō⟩ or ⟨ô⟩ , Eastern Cree dialects instead make use of ⟨u⟩ and either ⟨uu⟩ , ⟨ū⟩ , or ⟨û⟩ . Cree features

1680-501: The western grouping probably broke into distinct dialects much later. After this point it is very difficult to make definite statements about how different groups emerged and moved around, because there are no written works in the languages to compare, and descriptions by Europeans are not systematic; as well, Algonquian people have a tradition of bilingualism and even of outright adopting a new language from neighbours. A traditional view among 20th-century anthropologists and historians of

1722-471: The word order in Cree can place emphasis on different pieces of the sentence. Wolfart and Carroll give the following example by transposing the two Cree words: Cree dialects, except for those spoken in eastern Quebec and Labrador , are traditionally written using Cree syllabics , a variant of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics , but can be written with the Latin script as well. Both writing systems represent

Lake Athabasca - Misplaced Pages Continue

1764-596: Was a 7,460-hectare (18,400-acre) thermal coal mine with the capacity to produce about 3.2 million tonnes (7.1 billion pounds) of coal per year; 2.6 million tonnes (5.7 billion pounds) are proven to exist, and up to 84.7 million more tonnes (187 billion pounds) were posited. Tailings ponds were constructed to contain water used to wash coal; besides wastewater, the pools also contained fine rock and clay particles, unrecovered coal, and flocculents . Operations were suspended in 2012 because of economic pressures, and around 624 hectares (1,540 acres) of

#476523