Spring forward

Edward Wedler in his postscript (previous blog post) referenced the link between art and science to address public awareness of climate change. This connects well with the work of the Centre for Local Prosperity and their climate change video, as well as installations by Uncommon Common Art in Kings County.

Last week, I turned the page on my Esri Canada calendar, and noticed for March 2019, the map by Marcel Morin, Lost Art Cartography of the ancestral landscape of the Sikniktuk. It shows the dykes and aboiteaux in the Chignecto region, Cumberland County.

If we want to maintain the dykelands of Nova Scotia, we must understand the risk from sea level rise. A recent example was the destruction of an aboiteau outside of Hantsport, leading to flooding of the river valley.

We need to combine the latest science on climate change, with new LiDAR-based topographic maps, combined with the art of cartography to gain a broader understanding of the impact on our landscape.

Yesterday, we held a meeting of the Ernest Buckler Literary Events Society (EBLES) board over on the Bay of Fundy shore. In preparation for the program design for June 29th, it was necessary to read some of the related literature.

Barbara Pell’s book A Portrait of the Artist: Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley offered the following quotations.

“Margaret Atwood told us in 1972:

‘Literature is not only a mirror, it is also a map, a geography of the mind. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as OUR literature, as the product of who and where we have been.’ p.13

“As contemporary political debates continue to illustrate, regionalism has always been a distinguishing feature of Canadian identity and literature. The Mountain and the Valley joins a long tradition of Maritime fiction that idyllically and elegiacally celebrates rural Atlantic Canada.’ p.14

” in its evocation of geography and history, it touches themes of universal importance. Buckler saw the advantages of his regional setting “In the Nova Scotia country,…… you get the universals more than almost anywhere else”.p.14

This afternoon, Heather and I are heading up to the Gaspereau Valley and Avondale to join a tour by Solar Nova Scotia on alternative designs for solar homes. Perhaps Spring is not far away.

Acknowledgements

To Anne Crossman for her storehouse of Buckler books. To Edward Wedler for his enthusiastic championing of science-meets-art. To Jane Borecky for hosting the EBLES board meeting.

References

Barbara Pell 1995. A Portrait of the Artist: Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley. ECW Press.

Marcel Morin, Lost Art Cartography. Contribution to the Esri Canada 2019 calendar March.