Book Description

Brooks Peninsula, extending into the Pacific from the north-west coast of Vancouver Island, exhibits physical and biological characteristics of a region which may have escaped the last glaciation. This volume is a compilation of papers resulting from a multi-disciplinary research project to collect specimens and data on the human and natural history of this remote, uninhabited, and little-explored area. The objectives of the project were to determine the age of the land surface and describe its environmental history, determine the degree to which the plant and animal populations differ from adjacent glaciated areas, and to document past use of the landscape by people. Topics covered include bedrock and Quaternary geology, soils, plants, vascular plant cytology, paleoecology, terrestrial arthropods, fishes, vertebrates, ethnographic history, archaeology, and the peninsula as an ice age refugium. The final chapter reviews the multi-disciplinary research expedition strategy used to study the Brooks Peninsula.