Great Whale River
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The Great Whale River (French: Grande rivière de la Baleine) is a 724 km long river in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada. It flows from Lac Bienville west to Hudson Bay. Its drainage area encompasses 42,700 sq. km and its average discharge is about 680 cubic metres per second.[1]
Both the northern village of Kuujjuarapik, whose inhabitants are mostly Inuit, and the Cree village of Whapmagoostui are situated at the mouth of the river, near the site of the former RCAF Station Great Whale River. The villages were formerly known collectively as "Great Whale River" and "Poste-de-la-Baleine."
The state-owned power utility, Hydro-Québec, planned in the early 1970s to construct three hydroelectric power stations on the Grande-Baleine River as a part of the James Bay Projet.[2] Although detailed planning for the project was only begun in 1986, opposition from Crees, Inuit, environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the Friends of the Earth and other activists led the Premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, to announce in November 1994, that the project was suspended indefinately.
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[edit] Sources
[edit] External links
- General description, map and images
- Photos
- Hydro-Quebec and the Great Whale Project. Environmental/development negotiations; stakeholder analysis.