Category Archives: Uncategorized

Community Pasture Program

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Recently at the GeoREACH Lab, we have taken an interest in the Community Pasture Program in Atlantic Canada. Its prairie province counterpart is undoubtedly better known for its role in Western Canada’s agricultural recovery after the Great Depression. Still, the initiative was brought to this side of the country as well. In 1962, an Island farmer named Ken MacLean, along with several other community members, founded the Lot 16 Community Pasture. With help from ARDA, and later the LDC, community pastures expanded on PEI beyond Lot 16, and by 1979 the program had over seven thousand acres of land across all three counties.

The program was essential for the implementation of proper pasture management practices on Prince Edward Island. It also provided Island farmers with the chance to pasture their animals for a low price (often less than a dollar per day) and use their lands for hay and silage instead. For much of the 20th century, the main goal of farmers on the Island was to come up with enough fodder to feed the rapidly growing herds. The community pastures helped alleviate some of this demand, which often exceeded what individual farms could meet on their own land and dollar alone.

Using energy analysis tools, we will be exploring the various roles that community pastures have played in the local grazing communities for the past sixty years. Stay tuned for updates!

Sources:

“Community Pasture.” 1976. In Pages from the Past, edited by Violet MacGregor, Eileen Manderson, Jennie Betton and Etta Hutchinson, 51-52: Lot 16 Women’s Institute.

Prince Edward Island Land Development Corporation: Activities and Impact 1970-1977. 1979. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2020/eccc/En73-1-16-eng.pdf

Rogers, David. 1963. Grasslands, Pastures, Silage and Hay: A Major Resource of Prince Edward Island. Charlottetown: UPEI.

Turnips: Their Cultivation

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“There is no crop on your farm which can so ill bear delay at this time as your turnips, and unless you can afford to throw away the labour you have expended, and to forgo the benefit of a good supply of turnips for your stock, do this when it should be done, and do it well. If you are shorthanded, get every man woman and child who can lift a hoe, or pull a weed, go to work in earnest, and the job will soon be accomplished; and what is more your children will become expert at turnip culture on which all successful farming in this island will before long depend: and remember that a good turnip hoer never takes his eyes from the ground until called to dinner; recollect this yourselves, and impress it on the children, and there will be no stopping to talk, nor ceasing work to gaze at every passerby, by which so much time is often lost.“

Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay

Source: James Horsefield Peters, Hints to the Farmers of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown: JJ Pippy, 1851), p32.

Timely Notes on Topics Connected With Silver Fox and Mink Farming

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The Guardian Charlottetown. May 5th, 1951.

Image Source

“During the past ten years the production of ranch mink in the United States and Canada has rapidly increased. Over four times as many mink are now raised on Canadian and American fur farms as ten years ago. From 1940-1945 the average yearly production in the United States and Canada was 525,000 and the estimated 1950 production is close to 2,000,000 in the United States and 350,000 or more in Canada. About ten years ago the first mutation mink made their appearance but in very small quantities, Standards being the vast majority of the pelts to reach the auction companies. Today the situation is different as more mutations were produced last season than the standard dark mink type. A number of these different colors have been popular with the trade and profitable to the breeders but some have not been a paying investment and have been bred at a loss.” 

Source

February 20, 1956

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Blue jay in the winter.

“Today was a wash spread to fitful sun and cloud; a mild wind of February, and a sheltered hillside baring; a lone wild duck on wing and a blue jay’s shrill call. It was children off bright and eager to school-by sleigh, and the farmers busy about at the choring and hauling. We saw a grist being taken to the mill, one which will vanish smartly in tins and handfuls to the mangers of the stables about.

“‘Next thing we know there’ll be lambs’ Mack, little fellow of the place came in with the news today. ‘Yes, shortly. Do you know we’re not too far from spring now? There’ll be more calves and kittens too!’ he remembered. ‘I hope’ he added soberly ‘we’ll have good luck with those.’

…

Sugar maple sap collection.

“And through the branches of the maples in the yard, the little breeze played, bringing us tales of a sap-time of young years we knew… of honey-combed March snow in an old woodland where odd sugar maples grew. Not far from the sweetest brook rippled its thawing tunes as between woodsy banks it emerged in a meadow and ran at length to the river and Strait. And the trees tapped and tended by the farmlands thus providing nectar for themselves and any wayfaring maids could not know how far apart the band would one day wander to visit and dwell in separate climes and places.”

Source

PEI in Winter. Image Source.

Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Province of Prince Edward Island

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The Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Province of Prince Edward Island, colloquially known as Meacham’s Atlas of 1880, was one of the first attempts to map PEI in its entirety. A whole host of information can be found within the atlas; from detailed maps of each of the lots on the island – down to the individual houses, to realistic drawings of prominent citizens and their properties. It is a dream resource for any Island historian!

The Meacham’s Atlas maps before mosaicing.

For us at the GeoREACH lab, the atlas represents yet another opportunity to compile data on energy usage on the island during this period. We can see in the atlas the individual lots that compose our island even to today, each with personalized property information. The cartographers went so far as to outline the individual houses, barns, other infrastructure and property owners for each lot.

The Meacham’s Atlas maps after being mosaiced.

An important step in gathering the data from Meacham’s Atlas was to centralize all the available rasters (individual images) to a single resource. As all the lots were created independently, they would have to be stitched together into a single, geographically accurate map in a process formally known as mosaicing. This is why we have made, using GIS, a comprehensive mosaic of all the lots to easier represent this information.

The building points displayed over the entirety of Prince Edward Island.

Beyond that, we also entered data points for the over 16,000 buildings indicated on the map. Though it is still a work in progress, it is now available to be explored. You can adjust the different layers through the content window to look at churches, houses, mills, or schools, or can zoom in to a region you know well to see what it looked like in 1880!

Click here to explore the map.