| Beginning in 1875, Icelandic immigrants established a settlement in the wilderness on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg. In 1876 settlement spread to a large, low, wooded island with extensive wetlands. The settlement on the east side of the island came to be known as Hecla and eventually the name was extended to the entire island. The Icelandic settlers came from a culture dependent on pastoral stock raising on the subarctic tundras and meadows of their mid-atlantic island, supplemented by fishing from small open boats. The new environment required new techniques and landuse patterns to create sustainable communities based on commercial fisheries and supplementary subsistence agriculture based on livestock raising.The linear cultural landscape created by the evolving and growing settlement at Hecla is the focus of the study. Following expropriation of lands for park development and the loss of inhabitants and traditional land-use patterns the cultural landscape was transformed to a relict landscape. By examining traditional land-use patterns, and visual and spatial patterns, the essential characteristics of the cultural landscape, as it existed in the past as well as at the present, were identified. The results were used to develop a set of proposals for reviving the cultural landscape. Recommendations are made for management of semi-natural vegetation, opportunities for restoration of structures, and re-inhabitation of the landscape as part of the process of re-establishing cultural practices. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
