| Paleoclimatic research in Canada has largely focused on the use of physical proxy data, such as lake sediments, tree rings and ice cores. However, weather information from historical documents also has the potential to provide a wealth of climatic data. Historical documents offer many advantages over traditional physical proxies, including high temporal resolution and accurate dating. Journals from three Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) posts (Frances Lake, Pelly Banks and Fort Selkirk) in the southern Yukon Territory were analysed for weather. Climatic data were present in two forms: direct data (i.e. references to temperature, precipitation, wind and cloud conditions) and indirect data (i.e. ice activity, biological, human impacts and miscellaneous remarks).; A hierarchical coding scheme was applied to the journals, allowing for frequency counts of conditions. Weather information from the three journals was used to construct a seasonal warm/cold index for the period 1842-1852.* (Abstract shortened by UMI.); *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Microsoft Office. |
