Tag Archives: Prince Edward Island

Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum (NEAR-EH) 2023 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE

What kind of experience with their natural environment did these two people have? Wm. Notman & Son, Breadalbane Mill Pond and Bridge, Prince Edward Island, c. 1915. Object Number: VIEW-8253. McCord-Stewart Museum.

The Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum provides an annual opportunity for scholars to workshop book chapters and article-length papers on the environmental history of northeastern North America.

Each year, the forum is broadly focused on the history of human interaction with nature in the patch of North America from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the New Jersey Shore and inland to the Appalachian Mountains. Projects that meet this criteria are always welcome to be workshopped at this event, but this year the forum will also focus specifically on the environmental history of the “backyard”—that is, local, community-based environmental history. The intention is to create an edited collection with the “backyard” as the focus. A previous volume to come out of NEAR-EH workshopping was The Greater Gulf: The Greater Gulf: Essays on the Environmental History of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (McGill-Queens, 2020).

NEAR-EH 2023 is taking place on 23-25 June 2023 at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The workshopping will take place on the main campus in Charlottetown, and participants will also explore the new Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation and the Greenwich annex of the National Park in St. Peter’s Bay.

We look forward to welcoming you to Prince Edward Island!

All sessions and the reception will be held on the lower level of the Bill and Denise Andrew Hall 142. See Building #19 on the campus map.

Parking will be free for all participants at the lower level of Parking Lot B. It is an ungated lot close to the campus entrance on Belvedere Ave. There are also limited parking spaces at Andrew Hall for those staying in residence, and anyone staying overnight should keep their vehicle there as there is no overnight parking elsewhere on campus.

Schedule:

Friday, 23 June
TimeEventDetailsLocation
6:00-8:00 PMOpening Reception (dinner provided)Andrew Hall 142
Saturday, 24 June
TimeEventLocation
8:00-8:30 AMBreakfastAndrew Hall 142
8:30-9:45 AMSession ONE: Nature in the CityRichard W. Judd, “Boston’s Backyard Nature: From Vacant Lot to Urban Wild”; Claire Campbell, “Tidewater Aligned: Halifax, Nova Scotia”Andrew Hall 142
9:45-10:00 AMRefreshment BreakAndrew Hall 142
10:00-11:15 AMSession TWO: Historical MethodsMatthew McKenzie, “Tapping the Past: Experience and Insight in Environmental History Research”; Sean Cox, Toni MacRae, Sasha Mullally, Yun Zhang, “Lockdowns and Leisure: Aerial Capture of COVID-19 Recreational Spaces in Fredericton, New Brunswick”Andrew Hall 142
11:15 AM-12:15 PMLunch (provided)Andrew Hall 142
12:15 PM – c. 6:00 PMSession THREE: Field TripBus Tour to Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation and Prince Edward Island National Park – GreenwichCanadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, St. Peter’s Bay, and Greenwich Annex to PEI National Park, Greenwich
6:00 PM onwardOptional Dinner (planned informally)To be determined.
Sunday, 25 June
TimeEventLocation
8:00-8:30 AMBreakfastAndrew Hall 142
8:30-10:00 AMSession FOUR: Space, Time, and Transportation in a BorderlandEmma Schroeder, “The road to – where?”: International Debates Over Highway Construction in Maine in the 1960s and 1970s”; Jack Bouchard, “Terra Nova Incognita: Writing early Canadian history across time and space”; Matthew Hatvany, “Anticosti: The Shaping of a Natural Island”Andrew Hall 142
10:00-10:15 AMRefreshment BreakAndrew Hall 142
10:15-11:30 AMSession FIVE: Born to Be Wild? Nature in the BackyardCaroline Abbott, “The Coyotes of Crowell Road”; Edward MacDonald, “Camping in the Backyard: Nature and Provincial Parks on Prince Edward Island, 1945—2000”Andrew Hall 142
11:30 AM – to curfewSession SIX: Next, Please! The Way ForwardAndrew Hall 142

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.

April 27, 1949

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“This afternoon brought our farmers the end of their wood-splitting. From a window, where we sat comfortably at our mending, we saw last sticks being thrown to the heap, and the base of it made neat and compact, and then much as we would stop to regard and admire a fresh-gathered bouquet, the men paused to view their handiwork before leaving the scene of it, the lengthy and toilsome task over at last. ‘It’s remarkable,’ James commented of it when he came in to supper, ‘how much of a chore a fellow can get done, if he only is content to keep at it. A few minutes each day, Ellen, given over to some work or another, will one day give one ‘something done’ to be proud of. You know that was quite a heap of blocks to start at and we with only small time to give to it – some days not as much as a dozen sticks made, but,’ and he drew a happy sigh, ‘just by sticking at it- there it’s done!’”

Source

October 18, 1956

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“‘You’d think some Superman had been here’ one of the children chuckled this evening reporting on today’s first endeavour of the farm. ‘Big trees uprooted, great stones moved, stumps and bushes taken out… What a mess. They’re powerful machines, those bulldozers.’

“This was today’s great interest of these farms. A great machine moved in to clear away certain hedgerows and woodsy knolls for the sake of neatness and to make more open and arable the area about. 

“All day the work continued in this and that location until in the upheaval left in its wake one might well suppose that some Superman had passed by. 

“‘When we stop to consider how laborious it was to clear land back in the years- with axe and a hoe and a pry, or later, with the help of a stumper, hand- or horse-powered, it’s amazing to watch a bulldozer at work,’ James said this afternoon.

“The rolling hills of Queens County PEI” by Jamie McCaffrey is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

“‘It’s incredible what one can do- and so quickly. For example today, well years ago, it couldn’t have been attempted at all. No, couldn’t even have been considered.’

“It is likely some gallant old trees perished in the endeavour, wide-spreading maples, and birches, ringed with time, sturdy spruces, gay little firs.

“‘Remember that clump of birches, Ellen, out in the open field?” James queried, ‘That’s cleared away now, and the great stone too about which they grew.”

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.