Palliser Triangle
Palliser's Triangle, or the Palliser Triangle, is a semi-arid steppe occupying a substantial portion of the Western Canadian Prairie Provinces, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, within the Great Plains region. While initially determined to be unsuitable for crops outside of the fertile belt due to arid conditions and dry climate, expansionists questioned this assessment, leading to homesteading in the Triangle. Agriculture in the region has since suffered from frequent droughts and other such hindrances. History Before European interests and settlement expanded to the region, Palliser's Triangle was inhabited by a variety of aboriginal peoples, such as the Cree, Sioux, and the Blackfoot Confederacy. Their lifestyle was centred around the buffalo hunt, as the bountiful herds of buffalo made this a sustainable and effective means of feeding themselves, the meat of which was used to make pemmican. By the mid-1850s, however, the hunt had become an economic venture, their hid ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pemmican
Pemmican (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigenous cuisine in certain parts of North America and it is still prepared today. The word comes from the Cree word (), which is derived from the word (), "fat, grease". The Lakota (or Sioux) word is , originally meaning "grease derived from marrow bones", with the creating a noun, and referring to small pieces that adhere to something. It was invented by the Indigenous peoples of North America. Pemmican was widely adopted as a high-energy food by Europeans involved in the fur trade and later by Arctic and Antarctic explorers, such as Captain Robert Bartlett, Ernest Shackleton, Richard E. Byrd, Fridtjof Nansen, Robert Falcon Scott, George W. DeLong, and Roald Amundsen. Ingredients Traditionally, the specific ingredients used for pemmican w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Palliser
John Palliser (29 January 1817 – 18 August 1887) was an Irish-born geographer and explorer. Following his service in the Waterford Militia and hunting excursions to the North American prairies, he led the British North American Exploring Expedition which investigated the geography, climate and ecology of what would later become western Canada. Biography Born in Dublin, Ireland, he was the son of Colonel Wray Palliser and a brother of Major Sir William Palliser (1830–1882), all descendants of Dr William Palliser, Archbishop of Cashel (1644–1726). From 1839 to 1863, Palliser served in the Waterford Militia, eventually with the rank of captain. He was also appointed High Sheriff of County Waterford for 1844–45. During a hunting expedition in British North America in 1847, Palliser wrote ''Solitary Rambles and Adventures of a Hunter in the Prairies'', first published in 1853. He travelled back to British North America as leader of the British North American Exploring ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere and the interactions between them. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude/longitude, terrain, altitude, land use and nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and typical variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most widely used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration along with temperature ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole, with 0° at the Equator. Lines of constant latitude, or ''parallels'', run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude and ''longitude'' are used together as a coordinate pair to specify a location on the surface of the Earth. On its own, the term "latitude" normally refers to the ''geodetic latitude'' as defined below. Briefly, the geodetic latitude of a point is the angle formed between the vector perpendicular (or ''normal'') to the ellipsoidal surface from the point, and the plane of the equator. Background Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definitions of latitude and longitude. In the first step the physical surface is modeled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the ocean ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry Youle Hind
Henry Youle Hind (1 June 1823 – 8 August 1908) was a Canadian geologist and explorer. He was born in Nottingham, England, and immigrated to Canada, settling in Toronto, Ontario, in 1846. Hind led expeditions to explore the Canadian prairies in 1857 and 1858. In 1857, he explored the Red and Assiniboine River valleys, and in 1858, the Assiniboine, Souris, Qu'Appelle, and South Saskatchewan River valleys. The expeditions are described in his reports ''Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857'' and ''Reports of Progress on the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition''. Hind's activities changed perceptions of the North West and helped open up the Canadian Prairies for agriculture settlement. Early life Henry Youle Hind was born in Nottingham, England.Morton, p. 11 He was the third son of Thomas Hind and Sarah Youle Hind. His older brothers were Thomas and James Fisher, the younger William. He also had a younger sister Sarah. On 7 February he mar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences, the Society has 16,000 members, with its work reaching the public through publications, research groups and lectures. The Society was founded in 1830 under the name ''Geographical Society of London'' as an institution to promote the 'advancement of geographical science'. It later absorbed the older African Association, which had been founded by Sir Joseph Banks in 1788, as well as the Raleigh Club and the Palestine Association. In 1995 it merged with the Institute of British Geographers, a body for academic geographers, to officially become the Royal Geographical Society ''with IBG''. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or company, enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing. This contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a Market (economics), market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly and duopoly which consists of a few sellers dominating a market. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce the good (economics), good or Service (economics), service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb ''monopolise'' or ''monopolize'' refers to the ''process'' by which a company gains the ability to raise ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manifest Destiny
Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special virtues of the American people and their institutions * The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the Western United States, West in the image of the History of agrarianism#United States, agrarian Eastern United States, East * An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was always contested; many endorsed the idea, but the large majority of Whig Party (United States), Whigs and many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant) rejected the concept. Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity while the ''Whigs'' saw America's moral missio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the ancient geologic core of the North American continent. Glaciation has left the area with only a thin layer of soil, through which exposures of igneous bedrock resulting from its long volcanic history are frequently visible. As a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada, the Shield stretches north from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering over half of Canada and most of Greenland; it also extends south into the northern reaches of the United States. Geographical extent The Canadian Shield is a physiographic division comprising four smaller physiographic provinces: the Laurentian Upland, Kazan Region, Davis and James. The shield extends into the United States as the Adirondack Mountains (connected by the Fro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |