The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by 97198 (talk) 16:16, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

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Ashuanipi

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A map of the territory of Ashuanipi in 1900
A map of the territory of Ashuanipi in 1900

Created by Ornithoptera (talk). Self-nominated at 10:34, 11 May 2022 (UTC).

  • Great points @Szmenderowiecki:! It really means a lot that you have reached out, your thoughts are definitely helpful. I was already aware of the first point, I was not under any impression that Ashuanipi was governing itself, and that is expressed in the article, it was simply an error of my wording. According to the source, it sets out the boundaries (Quebec and the county of Saguenay), and then claims all other waters that flow into the Atlantic. I'll try and reword the hook with that in mind. Ornithoptera (talk) 07:25, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
  • ALT1 ... Quebec claimed that Ashuanipi (map pictured) included "all other parts of territory watered by water-courses flowing directly towards the Atlantic" in the poorly-defined borders set out for the region?
I don't think this fixes the problems. Basically the divide here is "rivers flowing into the St. Lawrence vs. rivers flowing directly towards the Atlantic". It still isn't clear for a person not interested in Canadian geography what the "all other part" means. Yeah, in Quebec, all rivers flow into the Atlantic, either via the St. Lawrence or to the Hudson Bay, but among the 150M+ visitors every month of the main page, how many people would know that? Which leads me to the second, I don't feel this would be an interesting hook to begin with. I'd suggest going along the lines of the Quebec law still featuring Ashuanipi despite having relinquished its claim over the area, choosing from the text you already have. If you are able to find more info to expand the article with the content not already in the French article, we can consider the info from there, though I don't think much will be found because mining, on which almost all of the population relies, wasn't a thing there in 1900s and the terrain is (still) mostly unpopulated as the climate is harsh. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:31, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Frankly the article kind of does find more info from reliable sources given that the original French article has some portions that remain unsourced. I do get what you mean, and if you have more information that you had come across while writing the Newfoundland and Labrador-Quebec border article you are welcome to send it my way. I'll propose an alternative hook as per your suggestion.
  • ALT2 ... that, according to the Territorial Division Act, Ashuanipi (pictured) is still recognized as one of four territories of Quebec?
  • @LlywelynII: To the best of my knowledge Ashuanipi technically exists in that weird grey zone of Quebec not making an active claim over the area after the ruling, but simultaneously recognizing it in legislation as a territory. There are territories that Quebec actively makes claims over (portions above the 52nd parallel), but Ashuanipi isn't included in that. We have instances of official maps that are required to illustrate Quebec's interpretation of the territory it controls, but this does not include Ashuanipi. However, that is complicated by the fact Quebec does still recognize it in some legislation (namely the Territorial Division Act), so I'm not sure myself how to word it. Ornithoptera (talk) 04:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Stronk Kebbek c. 1912
Current disputely disputed territory, none of which falls under Ashuanipi apparently
  • I guess the important bits are here:

    "The territory of Ashuanipi was defined under the terms of the An Act respecting the territories of Abittibi, Mistassini and Ashuanipi[1] (French: Loi concernant les territoires d'Abittibi, de Mistassini et d'Ashuanipi) of 1899. Article 2.3 of the act read: "The territory of Ashuanipi is bounded to the north, to the east and to the west by the limits of the province; and to the south and southwest by the county of Saguenay".[2] The Revised statutes of the province of Quebec, 1909 would recognize the same description of the territory.[3] The Territorial Division Act's description remains largely the same, but alters the south and southwest portion's boundaries by the "electoral districts of Duplessis and Saguenay".[4]
    "The territory, as defined by the provisions of the former act, directly included the river basins of the Ashuanipi River, Hamilton River, and Esquimaux River. It additionally included "all other parts of territory watered by water-courses flowing directly towards the Atlantic".[3]"

    1. If you're using title case, the letters marked in bold should be capitalized in English if not French, and you should delete the "the" before "An".
    2. If you're using sentence case, the underlined letters should be in lower case, although Act should probably stay capitalized and you should replace the "the An" that precedes it with a simple "the".
    3. 1909 either needs to be be followed by a comma, not be preceded by a comma, or surrounded with parentheses without any commas. "Would" is the wrong verb tense for something that happened 111 years ago, given that you're not setting a story in the year 1908 or sth here.
    4. There have been numerous "Territorial Division Acts". Google brings up several by Ontario and several by Quebec. You presumably mean the Quebecker act inclusive of all its modifications through the years (as linked), but you should clarify that—as opposed to 2 specifically dated acts that you've just mentioned—this act is the present form of the law inclusive of all of the amendments since its initial enactment in YYYY.
    5. It's completely opaque what "the former act" means here, given you've referred to 3. Grammatically, ignoring that it's meant to distinguish 2 options, it should mean that you're giving the territory's boundaries as provided by the ARTAMA (1899), which can't possibly be true since you just gave that definition. Presumably, you mean something else. It can't possibly mean the second of the two, since you say that's the same as the first. Possibly you wrote "former" and meant "last", which still can't be true since you just gave that definition. Presumably, then, you wrote "territory" (=Ashuanipi) and meant "province" (=Quebec). It's still unclear whether you meant the first or last of the 3 acts by saying "former", but presumably you mean to define "the limits of the province" that the first act included in its definition of Ashuanipi, which was supposedly repeated in the next 2 acts as well. Of course, the limits of the province aren't defined by any of this legislation. They're defined by some other more important federal act that you've omitted here.
    6. Similarly, the description you've provided here would mean that Ashuanipi's western border was on Hudson Bay and made a wide band across the entire province. That's obviously not the case, although the reason that's not the case is relevant parts of the legislation that you omitted here, explaining that the territories consist only of areas of the province of Quebec not otherwise organized as judicial districts (i.e. organized counties) or registration divisions (cf. §§1, 2, & 13 of the TDA).

    That probably ends up answering your confusion, although it requires a complete rewrite of the current article. Ashuanipi Territory includes all the land in the province of Quebec in watersheds flowing south to the Atlantic or its inlets which is not otherwise organized into counties. Correspondingly, it includes no land, since there are no lands within the province of Quebec which meet that definition. It may have always been a dead letter or it may at some point in the past have included land that was notionally Quebec's but, once whatever legislation occurred that established the present provincial border between Quebec and the Newfies, its size went to exactly nothing. Revise the map to show the dates of the valid claim or remove it there were never any valid claims to any of Newfoundland's part of the relevant watersheds.

    Of course, if this is a papal situation where you have the Quebec government still naming and paying titular administrators of its entirely notional "territory", that would be interesting and maybe even involve some newspaper stories and corruption trials. — LlywelynII 22:33, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

    Edit: Ok, now I'm even more confused.

    Apparently, Labrador has a good section on the Quebec boundary dispute, some of which should be included into your article; you should also link your article from there and the 52nd parallel north article. There's also the Newfoundland and Labrador–Quebec border article that you're already linked from. As near as I can understand: i. René-Lévesque is apparently the present name of Saguenay. You can leave Saguenay in historical legislation but you should clarify what its present name is at least once. The borders of the district seem to have changed over time to the point that it's completely irrelevant to Ashuanipi. That Ashuanipi's entire southern border would be with Duplessis, it looks like. That should be mentioned and ideally shown on a map of Quebec's local divisions if possible. ii. Your map appears to be based on the idea that René-Lévesque and Duplessis have northern borders defined by watersheds, which seems to be right although that isn't explained or sourced. It should be. iii. Your map appears to be based on the idea that the western and northern boundaries of Ashuanipi are determined by the course of the Ashuanipi and Hamilton Rivers, which doesn't appear to be correct at all, isn't explained, and isn't sourced. It should be, if it has any basis other than the map you found. iv. Historically, Quebec's claims against Labrador would have made Ashuanipi take up the entire continental part of Newfoundland outside a strip one mile deep from the ocean and its inlets, right? That should be explained and shown. v. The legal issue isn't resolved because Quebec never fully accepted the 1927 ruling after all. Parizeau had been willing to concede it in 1995 but that doesn't seem to have been made official and other Quebec pols since have continued to complain about the line. Quebec nationalism makes this all actually kind of important. vi. On the other hand, Quebec does seem to have fully conceded Ashuanipi. Its extraterritorial claims (see EQ's Cote-Nord map) only include the bits of Duplessis's watershed claims that inch north of 52°N. I don't know when Quebec stopped claiming everything except the Newfies' coastal strip but they seem to have, meaning that even if they got independence and threatened war to reclaim "their" land, it wouldn't include anything from "Ashuanipi" even though they continue to use the name. It might be a dead letter or might not, depending on how maximal their rejection of Labrador's expansion has been. — LlywelynII 23:44, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
i. Yep.
ii. If we assume the Quebec's claimed border since 1927, that's correct.
iii. Well, the only map we have is the one already provided in the article. There's also a description contained within this opus of a document, which says on p. 4790 that Ashuanipi is defined as being "the territory so bounded [that] comprises the basin of the River Ashuanipi, Hamilton or Esquimaux, as well as all other parts of territory watered by water-courses flowing directly towards the Atlantic." So not the course itself, but the basins. The northern and eastern boundaries definition are on page 5142-3. Ashuanipi, Hamilton and Esquimaux appear to be alternative names for the same river (not to be confused with Hamilton/Churchill Falls, which is a constant generator of electricity and Newfie butthurt).
iv. Yes, though a. it was Canada's claim, b. I don't know to which extent the part of Quebec's Labrador would belong to Ungava/Nouveau-Québec. The map is certainly valid for 1898-1912, but I see no newer map for 1912-1927, and I can't really access it. BAnQ doesn't seem to have a map of Ashuanipi (what would they plot there anyway?), and most maps of Quebec of the time ignore the region we know now as Côte-Nord for about the same reason.
v-vi. I removed the Parizeau statement as nothing seems to support it (maybe it's in the 2010 book by Dorion? but I have no access to it). The legal issue is in general considered to be resolved, but just like Newfies have butthurt about the Churchill Falls, Quebeckers have butthurt about the strip of land no one lives in. To be short, Canada stopped claiming the majority of Labrador following the 1927 ruling. Quebec insists, as is written in the article on the border, that it was wronged and the strip of land between the watershed and the federally/NL-recognised border should belong to Quebec, but no one seems to buy it (except for these guys, but even that video was botched because the map appearing in 0:37 has a straight border :)). Quebec tried to claim the whole of Labrador in the 1960s (as I've just got to know) when the Churchill Falls deal was being negotiated, but their maps no longer indicate the claim, so it most likely suggests they've learned to live with it. So yes, Ashuanipi is a relic of the books, just like the portions in the US Constitution about counting slaves as 3/5 of a person.
As an interesting side note, Ashuanipi has a lot of literature in the geological topics. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
Since I assume that I have now scared away anyone else with that text wall, I guess I'm on the hook for doing the full review now.
i. seems settled.
ii. No, given that it forms part of Ashuanipi's putative southern border, you should find out where they claimed that watershed line or (at least) figure out and mention by name which specific watersheds are clearly being used by the Quebeckinese. If it already is there and I didn't notice, apologies, but go ahead and work it into the territorial description instead of leaving things off at the "northern border" mentioned in the legislation.
iii. & iv. The p. 4790 definition ("as well as all other...") would seem to repeat the maximalist claim that Quebec wanted everything in continental Terre-Neuve except the one mile beachhead, unless there's something specifically around that setting a northern boundary. Certainly the Hamilton isn't only watered from the south. I'm getting unsafe address and other errors when I try to access the pdf, though. What does pp. 5142–5143 say? Anything about the midpoint of the Hamilton? or the map is wrong? or based on something else?
v. & vi. It really doesn't seem like it. We had a series of terrorist campaigns, massive war, and a series of nationally-involved amendments to fix that slavery business. It seems just the opposite here. Quebec drops the subject when there's no hay to be made and then immediately "remembers" this enduring "injustice" when it suits its purposes. It sounds like if anything valuable (nickel, lithium, oil, &c.) were discovered or they finally did go independent that this would be a major thing again, pending any formal renunciation of the claims.
 — LlywelynII 04:29, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Frankly with how a deep of a dive you have taken on the subject, I do appreciate the time you have taken to look into the topic. All of this is quite frankly overwhelming, so I have taken some time off the review. I don't have any way of verifying whether the images are appropriate, and they were not uploaded by me in the first place. If I was better acquainted with US copyright law I would give a more concrete assertion, but you are welcome to remove the image if it is in violation. If there is more that needs to be addressed, other than the minor grammar issues you have brought up earlier that need to be addressed, please do let me know. I do wish you avoid what seems to appear to be slighting my previous reviews, as we do need to remember that this community tends most often to do work in good faith. Ornithoptera (talk) 05:14, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • @Ornithoptera: Apologies for any personal offense caused. It's more of a general thing and not at all a slight on your decency. You're right that it's more appropriately addressed in the category talk as far as amending the rules given that foreign autotranslation is so generally possible that we as reviewers should at least show a good faith effort to have tried. That is admittedly hard in the case of nonhighlightable images of (eg) Chinese, Thai, Indian language, or even German Franktur books. If you're at all interested, see my review of the German Tarok article for how to go about addressing that. (The reviewer should obviously have a command of the language involved, so they should be able to transcribe the relevant quote for confirmation of existence and autotranslation.) No, that's not in the current rules so, no, there's nothing untoward in your not having done it. — LlywelynII 21:29, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
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