Nemiscau (or Old Nemaska) is a semi-permanent

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

settlement in northern Quebec, Canada, on Lake Nemiscau. During the mid-twentieth century, Thomas Nelson Dodd Jr., PhD, an American professor of chemistry from St. Peter's College in New Jersey, encountered the Cree people living at Nemiscau as he was canoeing in the nearby waterways. He developed a friendship with the people, and returned every summer as a kind of one-man peace corps. During his years with the Cree, he documented their spoken dialect which had never been written, as well as their customs and habits. He persuaded the Canadian government to build modern housing for the Crees, and Dr. Dodd's work was substantial enough to merit a federal grant of $15,000 from the American Philosophic Society in 1961. Dr. Dodd returned to Nemiscau every summer until July 1965, when he perished in a plane crash en route to Nemiscau. Nemiscau is the former site of a

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

post until 1970. The settlement was abandoned in the mid-1970s when

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec () is a Canadian Crown corporations of Canada#Quebec, Crown corporation public utility headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. It manages the electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission and electricity ...

proposed hydro-electric development on the

Rupert River The Rupert River is a river in Quebec, Canada. From its headwaters in Lake Mistassini, the largest natural lake in Quebec, it flows west into Rupert Bay on James Bay. The Rupert drains an area of . There is some extremely large whitewater on ...

, which would have resulted in the flooding of the area. Its residents were dispersed to

Waskaganish Waskaganish (/, Little House; ) is a Cree community of over 2,500 people at the mouth of the Rupert River on the south-east shore of James Bay in Nord-du-Québec, Canada. Waskaganish is part of the territory referred to as " Eeyou Istchee" ( ...

and

Mistissini Mistissini ( meaning Big Rock) is a Cree town located in the south-east corner of the largest natural lake in Quebec, Lake Mistassini. The town is inside the boundaries of the Baie-James Municipality and is the second largest Cree community ...

until the new community of

Nemaska Nemaska (, meaning ''underwater point,'' but commonly associated with the word ''namesiskâw'', meaning ''many fish''.) is a small Cree community located on the shores of Lake Champion, in Quebec, Canada. It is a small Cree village with a populat ...

was built. Since the development plans have been canceled, the Cree originally living here have started to return to Nemiscau, using it as a summer encampment. There are only a handful of year-round residents in Nemiscau.

Climate

Nemiscau has a

warm-summer humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

Dfb) with mild to warm summers with cool nights and freezing cold winters lasting half the year.

External links

*http://www.ottertooth.com/Native_K/nemaska.htm *http://www.nemaska.com Cree villages in Quebec Hudson's Bay Company trading posts {{Quebec-geo-stub