Subsistence Strategy in the Fish and Hare Period, Northern Ontario: The Weagamow Ojibwa, 1880-1920

Abstract

An original model is proposed to describe the subsistence strategy during a period when fish and hare had become the primary survival resource for certain Subarctic Algonquians--a period hitherto neglected in the literature. The model consists of a "home base" and its zones of exploitation that can expand and contract with changes in resource availability. Different patterns are described that suggest environmental diversity within the region. Three underlying principles are outlined that embody the knowledge required for carrying out these adaptive strategies. Detailed field data collected over the past seventeen years at Weagamow Lake, Ontario, were supplemented with archival records to reconstruct settlement and demographic patterns, environmental conditions, and specific food-getting techniques. Only brief attention could be given to relevant sociopolitical aspects that demonstrate the highly adaptive and flexible nature of Ojibwa society, in this report on some of the accumulated Weagamow Lake data.