Historical GIS Research in Canada

Historical GIS Research in CanadaHGIS book cover image_highres

Available in paper or as a free-e-book from: University of Calgary Press

Fundamentally concerned with place and our ability to understand human relationships with environment over time, Historical Ge­ographic Information Systems (HGIS) as a tool and a subject has direct bearing for the study of contemporary environmental issues and realities. To date, HGIS projects in Canada are few and publi­cations that discuss these projects directly even fewer. This book brings together case studies of HGIS projects in historical geogra­phy, social and cultural history, and environmental history from Canada’s diverse regions. Projects include religion and ethnicity, migration, indigenous land practices, rebuilding a nineteenth-cen­tury neighborhood, and working with Google Earth.

Contributors: Colleen Beard, Stephen Bocking, Jim Clifford, Joanna Dean, François Dufaux, Patrick A. Dunae, Jason Gilliland, William M. Glen, Megan Harvey, Matthew G. Hatvany, Sally Hermansen, Andrew Hinson, Don Lafreniere, John S. Lutz, Joshua D. MacFadyen, Daniel Macfarlane, Jennifer Marvin, Cameron Metcalf, Byron Moldofsky, Sherry Olson, Jon Pasher, Daniel Rueck, R.W. Sandwell, Henry Yu, and Barbara Znamirowski.

“The chapters are… so deeply informed by good historical scholarship and inspired by creative spatial thinking, that this book could become the crossover text that HGIS has needed. It could be more than a collection of case studies that demonstrate method. It could become an essential reader for historians of all kinds, in Canada and in the United States and beyond, for how to think spatially about environmental and urban history. From the introduction to the final chapter, the contributors’ emphasis on collaboration, and their genuine embrace of the diversity of skills required for excellent HGIS, strike just the right note, making the book an argument for what is most profoundly new about HGIS as scholarly practice. This is something that many of us engaged in HGIS projects have come to realize, but I have not seen it expressed as clearly and powerfully as it is here.”—Anne Kelly Knowles, Professor of Geography, Middlebury College

“This wonderful new, and highly unique book on Historical GIS Research in Canada (HGIS-C)… is much more than a history or geography text. This is an example of the very nature of how multiple disciplines can create new knowledge and ideas, new insights and solutions….[It sparks] our spatial and temporal senses to generate a more complete appreciation for the power of the map and the awesomeness of this country.”—James Boxall, Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives Bulletin

Stewards of Splendour

Traces of the Animal Past

Reclaiming the Don: An Environmental History of Toronto’s Don River Valley

Historical GIS Research in Canada-Table of Contents