ABSTRACT
In defining an approach for this study we had available the following academic research traditions: human or cultural geography, with its descriptive emphasis on cultural-environmental correlations; economic development, with its concern for the ways agrarian populations use resources to forge a viable economy; or cultural ecology, with its emphasis on the important role played by economic and technological adaptations in shaping social institutions. None of these approaches by itself seemed to provide a suitable format for the synthesis of a large quantity of data from a particular geographical and human region. The basic topic of the research project was, in fact, this region: a geographical area having historical unity. Jasper was not unified geographically; its parts could easily be divided among several contiguous geographical sections: the Cypress Hills, the Sandhill country, the prairie. Its unity came from its human associations: the fact that a strategically located town on the railroad was the chief port of entry for the Euro-American population and that a section of the Cypress Hills across the central portion of the region had been a focus for the earlier Indian habitation.
