Time Flies: A History of Prince Edward Island from the Air

Thanks to an unparalleled access to historical aerial photographs, Time Flies offers a new history of Prince Edward Island (PEI) Canada from an aerial perspective. The book presents images of iconic landscapes on the island province, and traces how those communities and natural ecosystems have changed over 85 years (1935-2020). Each site history illustrates and reflects on the nature of modern land use and land cover change in one of four chapters organized around primary resource economies, rural communities, urban development, and islands and coastal change. Time Flies offers a visually rich discussion of one island as the world and offers lessons that we can learn from the social and ecological transformation of PEI.

To purchase the book visit the publisher’s page at Island Studies Press or order it from Nimbus.ca, from local bookstores, or online at Indigo or Amazon.

Time Flies in Media and Reviews

Josh MacFadyen discusses Time Flies with Matt Rainnie on CBC PEI’s Mainstreet radio show. November 14, 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-130-mainstreet-pei/clip/16023092-joshua-macfadyens-book

Review of Time Flies by Mathias Rodorff, Atlantic Books, 98 (Fall 2023), p. 38 https://issuu.com/atlanticbookstoday/docs/abt_98-hr/38

Coming Soon, Time Flies web companion (January 2024)

For an interactive map and companion website showing aerial photos, historical maps, and additional stories check this space in January 2024. The map will feature the Time Flies study sites and more. For now, the entire province of PEI may be explored using the GeoPEI Historical Map Viewer, below.

A map shows all of the main sites used as case studies in the book Time Flies: A History of Prince Edward Island from the Air
The main sites used as case studies in the book Time Flies: A History of Prince Edward Island from the Air

Available Now (GeoPEI)

The GeoPEI Prince Edward Island Historical Map Viewer

Click the image above to try out GeoPEI, a new portal for exploring maps, atlases, aerial photos, and geospatial data pertaining to the history of Prince Edward Island. The GeoPEI portal takes maps that have been digitized on UPEI Robertson Library’s Island Imagined platform, and it overlays them on modern maps of PEI such as satellite images, street grids, and the latest aerial photos produced by the province. It also provides access to the Province’s aerial photographs going back to 1968 and 1935. In the future, users will also be able to find historical data such as the Island’s buildings, properties, roads, and other built infrastructure.. 

Users may toggle between seven historical maps and aerial photo layers, as well as the 2020 aerial photos and a number of basemaps in the ArcGIS Online viewer. Search for an address or location using the glass at the top left. Next to it are tools for measuring features and changing the basemap. Note, the default basemap (imagery hybrid) keeps the roads and place name labels above the historical layers. This is often helpful for identifying land use change. If you prefer not to see the labels, change the basemap to the plain imagery option. Happy historical mapping! The full url to GeoPEI is https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/9870ec990eaa40069f772b7025fbd18c/