Errata for Human Geography in Action, 3Rd Edition

Errata for Human Geography in Action, 3rd Edition

All CD errors listed here have already been fixed, but it was too late to include the fixes on the CD for September, 2003 shipments. Corrected CDs will be included in the next printing of books for Spring 2004.

Chapter 1

On the CD, in Activity 2 (USA only), on the state choropleth map, the title box is not editable. (It is editable on the sample exercises on the Wiley Internet site

On the CD, in Activity 2 (Canada only), there are two interrelated problems. The background on the Aboriginal population has been omitted. This section is reproduced on the other side of this errata sheet. Also, the browser navigation to the Canadian Instructions and Questions is not as described in Step H on page 19. To find the Canadian Instructions and Questions, between Steps E and F, click on Instructions and Questions and scroll down about 2/3 of the way to the heading Instructions and Questions (Canada). We suggest that instructors print these pages and hand them out to their students. Alternatively, students can select the entire Canadian section, copy it, and paste it into a word processing program. Both of these problems have already been fixed on the sample exercises on Wiley’s Internet site, where it works exactly as described in the book.

p. 25, Step S (also Canadian Instructions, Step R). Instead of saying Go to the File menu and Print, it should say Click on the Print button in the lower-right corner. Either method should work on most computers.

p. 31 In the Definition of Key Terms, the word “Systems” is missing from Geographic Information Systems.

Chapter 5

On the CD, in Activity 2, the Final Total Fertility Rate should be 3.2, not 3.3. Instruction I on p. 126 says to “leave the Final Total Fertility Rate at 3.2.” Students will have to change it from 3.3 to 3.2.

Chapter 6

p. 155, Table 6.3. The unlabeled column is for Nunavut.

p. 169, Table 6.5. In the last column, the Canadian percentages for categories 51-72 should be: Information 2.32, FIRE 4.62, Producer Services 2.60, Education 6.91, Health care 6.39, and Arts etc. 4.88. (These particular data are not used in answering any of the questions in Activity 1.)

Chapter 7

p. 181, Table 7.1. The terms Nationalization and Neocolonialism (both within the Dependency School of Thought) should switch places: neocolonialism is a “main idea” of the Dependency School and nationalization is a “real world strategy.”

Chapter 9

On the CD, the market area population value for San Francisco (1.8 or 1.7) sometimes overlaps across the market area boundary with Oakland. Similarly, Philadelphia’s number (10.2 or 9.5) sometimes overlaps into the market area for the New York Mets. Also, On the 1998 Expansion, Major League Teams 1997 market area populations, the New York Yankees’ value is missing (14.7), and the New York Mets value (7.4) is sometimes in the Yankees’ area.

Chapter 11

On the CD, in Activity 2, the green stars that should show the centers of the urban villages are missing.

p. 314, Step H. There is no Animate button, but the map can be animated manually by moving the slider.

p. 318, Table 1.11 The first column (row definitions) should have no heading. The second column heading should be Beltway, and the third heading should be Urban Villages. The last 3 headings are correct.

Country Facts on the CD

Footnotes missing: Sources: deBlij, H.J. and Alexander B. Murphy. 2003. Human Geography: Culture, Society, and Space (7th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons, and Central Intelligence Agency. 2002, CIA Factbook: (compiled by Ross Nelson and Michael Pidwirny). If not in deBlij and Murphy, regional and world weighted averages were calculated based on the individual countries with data. Countries with missing data were ignored in the regional calculations.Countries not included in the Country Facts database include Kiribati, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, St. Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Tonga, and Tuvalu. These were excluded from one or the other of the source data sets. Net migration rates are positive if there are more in-migrants than out-migrants. Doubling times are not shown if rate of natural increase is zero or negative.

Glossary on the CD

These terms are missing from the Glossary. They are not key terms in any chapter, but they are in the Country Facts database:

• Arithmetic Population Density: Average number of people per unit of land.

• Physiologic Population Density: Average number of people per unit of arable (farmable) land.

Population Density: A measure of the average number of people per unit of land. It is called arithmetic density if it is calculated using the total land area, or physiologic if it is based on the amount of arable (farmable) land.

Background (Chapter 1 for Canada)

The term “Aboriginal” is used in Canada to refer collectively to people who are descendants of the first populations to inhabit North America. Aboriginal populations include First Nations (North American Indians), Inuit, and Métis. First Nations are the largest of the three groups. They accounted for approximately two-thirds of the 800,000 Aboriginal people living in Canada in 1996. They also have the longest history and are the most cultural and geographically diverse Aboriginal population. Ancestors of the First Nations migrated from Asia to what are now the state of Alaska and the Yukon Territory between 15,000 and 35,000 years ago during the last ice age. At this time, sea levels were 100 metres lower than present, making it possible to move overland between the two continents. Approximately 10,000 years ago, as the ice sheets melted, these populations could move south to the unglaciated regions of North America. Possible migration routes were an ice-free corridor along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and exposed islands and beaches along the Pacific coast. As the continental ice fields later retreated northward, big game and the First Nations people followed, eventually occupying most of the plains, valleys, coastlines, and plateaus of contemporary Canada. Adaptation to local geographies and the vast distances and barriers of Canada’s physical landscape worked over time to create many distinct cultural groups. Over 600 First Nations—representing 52 cultural groups—live in Canada.

Inuit are Aboriginal people who live in the Arctic. Numbering 40,000 in 1996, 90 percent of the Inuit live in either the Northwest Territories, northern Quebec, the Labrador coast of Newfoundland, or Nunavut (slightly more than 50% of the total). Nunavut, which means “Our Land” in the Inuktitut language, was officially established in 1999. The boundaries of this new territory roughly correspond to the ancestral lands of the Inuit of the central and eastern Arctic. Inuit and other arctic cultures, migrating in several waves from Asia and Alaska, have lived in this area for 5000 years. Three-quarters of Nunavut’s present population are Inuit.

Métis are people with a mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry (Métis means “mixed blood”). The word is used by many Canadians to refer to the descendants of the First Nations and fur traders in western Canada, especially those associated with French communities in southern Manitoba. However, while recognized as Aboriginal people in the Canadian constitution, there is no accepted, legal definition of a Métis. As a result, population estimates can vary widely. The 1996 census defined a Métis as anyone who identifies themselves as a Métis. This definition suggests there are just over 200,000 Métis in Canada, 75 percent of whom live in the four western provinces. Other estimates suggest that the descendants of the first Métis could now number in the millions.

All Aboriginal populations were deeply affected by the resettlement of North America by Europeans. In 1500 AD, at the time of first contact, the Aboriginal population living in present day Canada is estimated to be roughly 500,000. Four hundred years later, the total was 100,000. This dramatic decline was the result of warfare, the loss of traditional lands and food sources, and disease. Lacking natural immunities and knowledge about how to treat “Old World” diseases, Aboriginal communities across Canada were devastated by tuberculosis, small pox, influenza, and cholera. It was not unusual for an epidemic to claim one-half of a group’s members. A chilling reminder of the disastrous consequences of these factors is the empty chair reserved for the Beothuk at First Nation assemblies. The last Beothuk—a First Nation that hunted big game and fished along Newfoundland’s rocky shores—died of tuberculosis in a St. John’s hospital in 1829.

Aboriginal populations have been, until recently, primarily located in rural and isolated areas of Canada. This distribution is partly attributable to the historic pattern of occupation and the practice of traditional ways of life. It is also a product, especially for members of First Nations, of the establishment of Indian Reserves. Reserves are treaty and non-treaty lands that were set aside ostensibly to protect Aboriginal people. However, their unstated purpose was to expedite settlement and resource exploitation. In central Canada and on the prairies, First Nations gave up their ownership of vast territories—as acknowledged in the Royal Proclamation of 1763—in exchange for reserves and attendant economic and social benefits. In British Columbia, reserves were established for the most part without negotiation or compensation. The failure to obtain proper legal consent is the basis for ongoing land claims in this province. In either case, the lands First Nations bands received were often small, out-of-the way parcels of marginal quality (the combined area of the 2300 reserves in Canadian provinces is less than half that of the large Navajo reservation in the United States). Reserves situated on better land, especially those in expanding urban areas, were, in some cases, expropriated without compensation. The physical and economic isolation of reserves was reinforced by the Indian Act of 1876 and its distinction between “status” and “non-status” Indians. Status Indians were allowed to live on reserves and receive the benefits of treaty settlements; they could not, however, vote, serve in the military or on juries. Non-status Indians, in contrast, effectively chose to relinquish their treaty rights for Canadian citizenship. Women who married non-First Nations persons automatically lost their status as Indians. The government hoped these policies, along with residential schools, and restrictions on some political and ceremonial activities, would assimilate First Nations people into Canadian society. The policies ultimately failed. Most First Nations people kept their rights even in the face of poor housing, inadequate services, and high unemployment on many reserves.

While Aboriginal people are collectively still the most rural ethnic population in Canada, they have also moved to urban areas in large numbers over the past 50 years. In 1996, 35 percent of the Aboriginal population, and almost 50 percent of Métis, lived in Canada's 43 largest cities. Winnipeg, Manitoba has the largest Aboriginal population (45,000) while Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has the highest proportion (7.5 percent of the city’s residents are Aboriginal people). There are many push and pull factors for this urban migration. Perhaps the most important have been the gradual changes to the Indian Act. Aboriginal people now enjoy the same rights and freedoms as other Canadians while many who had voluntarily or involuntarily given up their Indian status have been reinstated. Employment and educational opportunities, social contacts, and urban support networks have also encouraged migration. Population pressures and natural increase may also play a factor. Aboriginal populations are growing at a rate of 3 percent annually, more than double the rate for the general population. More than half of this growth occurs off-reserve.

—-- Dr. Ross Nelson, University College of the Cariboo