Joshua MacFadyen - From Big Data to Dirt Research: Mapping Canadian Energy Transitions in City, Field, and Forest

From Todd Suomela November 18th, 2024

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BUDSC Virtual Presentation
November 13, 2024

From prairie wheat kings to log-waltzing timber drivers, Canadians evoke a sense of working with the natural world. For most of Canadian history, its primary sector operated in what economist E. A. Wrigley called the “solar regime” of energy history, limited by the biomass that plants and animals could convert from the sun’s energy. The transition from biomass to fossil fuels was universal, but in Canada it was surprisingly slow, and historians know relatively little about it. This paper presents some of the digital methods being used to mine data and examine transitions in UPEI’s GeoREACH Lab (for Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History). Using historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS), as well as census data development, students have helped to digitize maps and manuscripts with a focus on the period of the energy transition (circa 1870-1970). The approaches range from automated polygon recognition on historical maps, to oral interviews and online participatory mapping. Other projects have focused on data development to study the energy transition in cities in Ontario and in agroecosystems across Canada.

Tags: budscdigital scholarshipgis

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