Book Review: Remains of the invasion of Wild West

From the Star Phoenix:  Remains of the invasion of Wild West

"Let's just say that it all began when Keith and I took a trip." That's the folksy and disarming style with which prolific Saskatoon writer Candace Savage takes us into her latest book, A Geography of Blood.
But what begins as a wide-eyed discovery of a part of the province she had barely noticed before becomes a gradual unearthing of all the mysteries she feels that part of southwest Saskatchewan has kept hidden for years.
She and her partner, Keith, stumbled onto Eastend driving up from Wyoming back in September 2000. Their happy accident led to a brief visit, which parlayed through a stay at the Wallace Stegner House, into them buying their own home and becoming part-time citizens of Eastend.
Savage then goes on to tell how she and Keith drove off in just about every direction at once, trying to explore this country new to them, and how they endured breakdowns and getting lost. "If you've never squeezed into the cab of a tow truck with three dogs, you really haven't lived," she cheerfully relates, all part of that easygoing feel with which she cushions her reader. But there's more going on here.
Before she even got to East-end she made fun of a Wild West show in Cody, Wyo., blasting the iconic Buffalo Bill for his reputed killing of 4,860 buffalo in "just 18 months."
And before she's got out to see the new big draw in Eastend, the T. Rex Discovery Centre, celebrating Scotty, another in a long line of local dinosaurs, Savage takes issue with iconic, short-stay Eastend author Wallace Stegner and his famous book Wolf Willow. There's something about the book that bothers Savage, but she can't put her finger on it.
With a title like A Geography of Blood, you just know it isn't going to be dinosaur blood, even after the jolly time she has with the kind people at the museum. She finds teepee rings on a walk and, with Stegner's avowed discomfort over an almost ghostly native presence swirling in her head, begins to ask herself, as Stegner did, how the mainstream white population to which she belongs made the jump from untamed frontier to peaceful farm country.
Attentive fiction and history readers will know about Guy Van-derhaeghe's Englishman's Boy, with its graphic depiction of the Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873, and Walter Hildebrandt and Brian Hubner's 2007 history of the Cypress Hills - Savage mentions them in her bibliography - to say nothing of the burgeoning First Nations literature that is telling its own stories of the West. But this is Savage's own awakening to how, somehow, she - a historian in her own way - missed the wholesale disappearance of First Nations people from the prairie to make way for her people, the settlers. But, of course, they haven't disappeared and she goes looking for them.
A Geography of Blood is one woman's encounter with the silence that blows across all the tee-pee rings, arrowheads and buffalo skulls that still lie in southwest Saskatchewan. She writes it as a mystery, because it's a mystery to her, even with those aforementioned books in her library. She finds Fort Walsh and Farwell's Trading Post. She learns about the treaties to settle whole nations of people in the Cypress Hills and how the Canadian government reneged on those agreements. She finds the successful native farming initiative, abandoned, and the hunger camps that followed: First Nations people were starved into going to reservations the government wanted them to take so they'd be out of the way of the new arrivals. And to see the modern wreckage of those official policies, she joins a talking circle at the federal correctional centre outside Maple Creek.

To people who know the stories or books that tell of the forced starvation and eviction of the Plains First Nations people from their land, as well as the outright destruction of the entire bison ecosystem, Savage's story is a familiar one. But not familiar enough to the population at large. Keith tells her, "There are a lot of things that nobody talks about ... in the imposition of colonial power," and this sad tale is one of them.
The glorious achievement of Huck Finn in his journey down the Mississippi with the Black slave Jim is his gradual realization that Jim is a human being, just like him. Candace Savage makes a similar journey in her awakening to what treaties and mass destruction mean to whole nations of human beings. No matter what you think you know, and maybe especially if you think you know a lot, you can learn a great deal from A Geography of Blood.

A GEOGRAPHY OF BLOOD Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape By Candace Savage, Greystone, $26.95

West Virginia DEP contracts with MU Geography Department to employ student interns to convert paper mine maps to GIS format

From Huntington News:  West Virginia DEP contracts with MU Geography Department to employ student interns to convert paper mine maps to GIS format 

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.– The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) has sub-contracted with Marshall University’s Geography Department to employ student interns to convert paper mine maps to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database format.

The contract for the GeoMine project is actually a renewal of a previous contract that lasted from December 2011 to September 2012. The current contract, which provides an additional $129,000 in funding from the WVDEP, runs through December 2013.

“This is a feather in our cap,” said Dr. David Pittenger, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “Our Department of Geography offers an outstanding education that allows students to learn both the political-economic-historical perspective of geography as well as the powerful tools used to create complex maps using GIS technology.”

Dr. James M. Leonard, a geography professor and director of the Geography Department GIS Lab, said the contract has so far employed 12 different undergraduate and graduate students. He said the GeoMine project is a joint venture among several federal agencies, notably the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement and several state-level environmental protection agencies, including the WVDEP.

“The project goal is to create a Geographic Information Systems database for monitoring and regulating coal mining in Appalachia,” Leonard said. “I expect additional students to be hired as the needs of WVDEP may require. One hundred percent of the funding has gone to students.”

 

Google Adds Geographic Terrain Imagery To Maps

From Hot Hardware:  Google Adds Geographic Terrain Imagery To Maps

Google continues to improve upon its Google Maps; earlier this week it announced that Googlers were mapping the Grand Canyon with backpack-mounted cameras, and now the company has added layers to its maps that show the terrain, color gradation indicating vegetation, and additional labels that show natural land formations.

This is all an effort to show locations with more intelligence and context. For example, if you can see where a mountain range is located, the location and layout of surrounding big cities and rural countryside make more sense.

L: The new terrain and vegetation overlay; R: the old look of Google Maps

Further, it’s somewhat marvelous to be able to see important geological areas labelled. The example Google gave in a blog post is of the Amazon Basin. When you can see the thick vegetation, wide area, and helpful label on that area of South America, you can appreciate the magnitude of that place.

The concept of maps is a powerful one, and never before have people had such convenient and powerful access to maps with this breadth and depth. A curious mind could get lost for hours poking around different parts of the globe with Google Maps.

 

Q: Who is Washington's Whidbey Island named after?

From the Seattle Times:  Geography quiz: Who is Whidbey Island named after?

Q: Who is Washington's Whidbey Island named after?

A: Joseph Whidbey, an English naval officer who circumnavigated the island in 1792 on Captain George Vancouver's ship.

Explorer of the Week: Elena Garcea

From National Geographic:  Explorer of the Week: Elena Garcea

Elena Garcea, a member and leader of multiple National Geographic archaeological projects in Africa, has always been interested in studying ancient people’s lifestyles. When she’s not in the field, she teaches paleoethnology and interprets the data from the field.
What project are you working on now?
My current field research takes place in a small island in the Nile River, Sai Island, and on the west bank of the Nile (Amara West) in Upper Nubia, northern Sudan. I’m investigating the major economic and cultural shifts that took place between 10,000 and 4,500 years ago, when the latest hunter-gatherers started to produce their food with domesticated animals and plants, adopting animal herding first, and then plant cultivation. These shifts involved changes in the settlement systems, the production of different pottery vessels and stone tools, and the establishment of new social relations. I usually spend one or two months a year in the field.
What inspires you to dedicate your life to archaeology?
I like my job because it allows me to work with both my hands and my brain. I enjoy working in the field in Africa, and I am attracted to understanding the beginning of things. My major interests focus on the spread of early Homo sapiens—our human species—as they moved out of Africa between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, first reached southwestern Asia, and then Europe. I’m also fascinated by the dynamics that occurred when the latest hunter-gatherers started to produce their food and domesticated animals and plants, adopting animal herding in Africa some time after 10,000 years ago. An assemblage of worked stones, or potsherds, has many stories to tell us. It can reveal how the people who made those stone tools and those pots adjusted to the environment where they lived, how they survived and developed, and how they related with other groups who lived in the surroundings. Prehistory is the science that deals with common people, their behavior, and their lifestyles. It teaches us to think about a geography and a history different from those designed in the last 2,000 to 3,000 years by wars and armistices, conquerors and vanquished, rulers and subordinates.

Garcea examines two joining potsherds, or broken pieces of ceramic material. Photograph by Roberto Ceccacci

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve discovered in your work or in the field?
When I was working in the central Sahara desert, I discovered the archaeological remains of the earliest humans of our species, Homo sapiens, who left East Africa and gradually moved towards North Africa, Europe, and then the Middle East. Nobody knew at the time—it was the early 1990s—that the early representatives of our species lived in the Sahara, which was not a desert then, around or slightly before 100,000 years ago. Even the experts in this field had denied it. Understanding the out-of-Africa movements of early Homo sapiens subsequently became another major interest of mine.
If you were to meet your eight-year-old self, what would you say?
“You always wanted to be an archaeologist and you made it!” Young people should find a passion in what they would like to do. Passion is the key to overcome the difficulties and the obstacles that every job can bring.
If you could trade places with one explorer at National Geographic, who would it be and why?
I would switch jobs with Zinhle “Zinny” Thabethe because she can change the world. While I work to uncover the past, she works for the future to cure and educate HIV/AIDS patients by bringing hope with the music of her choir. She is a person I deeply admire. She can successfully contribute to afflicting problems with her artistic talent. My work is similar, in a way leading an archaeological team is like conducting an orchestra. You need the cooperation of every single voice.
What do you think National Geographic explorers will be exploring in a hundred years?
Many of the diseases that we are creating with our careless attitudes, as well as everything existing on Earth and in space. However, I hope National Geographic will continue to support archaeological research and understand the value of knowing our human past. A hundred years is not a whole lot of time for an archaeologist.

Garcea on the Nile river, Photograp by Roberto Ceccacci

What one item do you always have with you?
I always have a handkerchief in my pocket. I hate using paper tissues as they are polluting, tearable, and hard to dispose of in the field. Handkerchiefs can be useful for many purposes (wiping, holding something that is too hot or too cold, unscrewing jars, etc.).
What is your favorite National Geographic magazine article?
“The Black Pharaohs” by Robert Draper. The archaeology of Sudan has been long neglected and here it is very clearly presented. Some of it, at least.
If you were to bring back one species of animal that has gone extinct, what would it be?
I would like to meet Homo habilis, the earliest member of the same genus as ours, Homo sapiens. Homo habilis evolved around 2.3 million years ago and became extinct around 1.4 million years ago in Africa. He is the first species for which there is evidence of use of stone tools.

 

Shared geography: Dive into the confluence

From RiverFallsJournal:  Shared geography: Dive into the confluence

A National Park Service conference in 2009 sparked the idea of local communities working together to share common concerns, foster partnerships and encourage tourism.
The Confluence Project started not long after with local and regional people working toward the goal of creating a common vision of education, conservation and recreation at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers.
Members of the project include people from two national parks, the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area and the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway; the Carpenter Nature Center in Hastings, Minn.; the Friends of Freedom Park in Prescott; the Minnesota DNR; Pierce County, Wisc.; Dakota and Washington counties in Minnesota; the city of River Falls; Prescott; and the Minnesota cities of Afton and Hastings.
Mayors from each of the cities gave a presentation Friday, Oct. 12, at the River Falls Public Library describing their town’s unique characteristics.
River Falls Mayor Dan Toland told about the Kinnickinnic River’s unique attributes, as well as the many opportunities for recreation in and around it.
Toland highlighted the city’s trails, history tours, many festivals and more. Resident and longtime member of the Community Arts Base Sue Beckham also presented information.
Website builder Mandy Matzek also spoke to the crowd as she showed the site on a big screen: “Its main job is to inform,” she said, adding that the designers of it worked hard to procure photography that highlights the stunning visual beauty of the area.
She explained that the website includes a powerful map feature with layers that already show many of the region’s natural assets. It will continue to grow and expand to include more things.
The speakers said the symposium was the official “soft” launch of the website that intends to bring visitors to and from all four areas of the confluence.
Members of GRC define its geography this way: “This project encompasses the physical territory around the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers located in the greater Afton, Hastings, Prescott and River Falls areas.”
The site aims to promote not only the region’s natural beauty, but also its fishing, boating, canoeing, hiking, commercial shipping, trains, swimming, motorcycling, biking, hiking, history and more.
The Confluence Concierge portion of the website gives visitors a chance to zero in on specific activity packages that might include music, wine, patio dining, dessert, a bed-n-breakfast stay, or a creative combination of several things.
Margaret Smith, executive director for the Friends of Freedom Park Center, said she often receives requests from people looking for that kind of guidance.
For example, maybe they’d ride bikes or motorcycles into town and ask where they could hear live music along the route.
Others may want to do outdoor recreation then fine dining. People can choose and create any number of combinations that take them to the four main communities of the GRC.
As people raised their hands to mention or ask about specific areas, activities or entities, the presenters made clear that the website is and will always be a work in progress.
The idea is to add to it, enrich it and give people something that helps them come and enjoy all the region has to offer.
“We also recognize there are a lot of things missing on here that we need to add,” said Gene Groebner of the Minnesota DNR.
Presenter Matzek agreed, “Partnerships are going to be key.”
Symposium packages included a list of all the attendees to encourage immediate networking and communication. Participants spent the first part of the day inside the library hearing presentations and seeing the site. They were on a bus tour for the second part of the day that included seeing River Falls parks along the Kinnickinnic River and trails, the new Point Douglas Trail site, the Carpenter Nature Center, the new Hwy 61 bridge and its trail, Hastings trails and a prairie restoration project, and the LeDuc Historic Estate and Prescott’s Orange Dragon Art Gallery.
The presenters encouraged everyone to check out the site, refer other people to it and provide feedback.
Much more information is available about the Great Rivers Confluence Project and its activities at the newly launched website:
www.greatriversconfluence.org.

 

Geography presentation goes Greek

From the Daily Eastern News:  Geography presentation goes Greek


An associate professor of geography will shed light on the legacy of ancient Greek geographers Thursday.
Michael Cornebise, an associate professor of geography and the chairman of the Eastern geology/geography department, will present “Ancient Greek Geography and Geographers” in room 2120 of the Physical Science Building at 2:30 p.m.

The lecture is part of “A Futuristic Look Through Ancient Lenses: A Symposium on Ancient Greece.”
Cornebise said he was so impressed after watching several presentations during the Symposium on Ancient Egypt last year that he wanted to participate this year.

He said his lecture will explore how the ancient Greeks’ ideas influence current scientific practices.

Many concepts used in modern applications of geography are attributed to ancient Greek geographers such as Hecataeus of Miletus, Eratosthenes, Theophilus, Strabo and Ptolemy, he said.

“As geographers, we trace our roots to the ancient Greeks,” he said.

Cornebise said he would use many visual aids to engage the audience in history.

Some images will be of ancient maps showing the significance of cartography, which is the art and science of map making.

“We owe a lot to how they constructed their maps,” he said.

He said it is important for those studying geography to examine historic records in order to trace the origins of their ideas.

“One of the threads that runs through the whole spectrum is how we relate practices to modern life,” he said. “The connection (with Greece) is a lot clearer than other ancient societies.”

Beth Heldebrandt, the editorial writer for library services, said the symposium has expanded to offer more programs than the previous one on Ancient Egypt because of positive responses from students.

She also said more than 100 people were present for the opening ceremony in Booth Library, and the first two lectures of the series have been successful.