Historical GIS

Book chapter:

• Joshua MacFadyen and William Glen, “Top-down History: Delimiting Forests, Farms, and the Census of Agriculture on Prince Edward Island Using Aerial Photography, ca. 1900 2000,” [chapter PDF] in Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin, eds., Historical GIS Research in Canada.

Blog Posts:

• Long-range forecasts (Demonstrates a GIS powered time-map)
• Upper Canada’s maker spaces: Modeling the rural mill complex
• Mapping the Rural Industrial Landscape: Flax Mills in Ontario
• Remote Sensing and Historical GIS.
• Mobile Mapping and Historical GIS in the Field.

Web Resources:

• Jim Clifford, Joshua MacFadyen, and Daniel Macfarlane, The Geospatial Historian
  • About
  • Lesson 1: Google Map Engine and Google Earth
  • Lesson 2: Installing QGIS 2.0 and Adding Layers
  • Lesson 3: Creating New Vector Layers
  • Lesson 4: Georeferencing
  • Finding Spatial Data
• Georeferencing Using Quantum GIS
• GeoWatch (Geospatial Workshops in Atlantic Canadian History)

Articles, Posters, and Exhibits:

• Joshua MacFadyen and Alan MacEachern, Time Flies: Aerial Photography and Landscape Change, Prince Edward Island, 1935-2010, Poster at the American Society for Environmental History, Toronto, 2013
• Alan MacEachern and Joshua MacFadyen, “Aerial Photography, Landscape Change, & PEI National Park, 1935-2010,” Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown, April-September 2012.
• Joshua MacFadyen, Mobile Mapping and Historical GIS in the Field (teaching resource) and [article PDF].

Atlantic Canadian web maps:

Follow these links to see some early National Topographic Series maps prepared by Josh MacFadyen and hosted on the University of Toronto Map Library website courtesy of Marcel Fortin. The maps are overlaid on a Google web map. Viewers can adjust the transparency with the slider bar on the top right, view the historical map as an overlay on terrain or satellite images, or click “Earth” to switch into Google Earth mode and see 3D elevation and modern buildings (in Halifax and Dartmouth). Note: these historical images are large and will appear on the screen slowly, especially as you zoom into the Google map.

• National Topographic System Maps – Halifax, 1920s
• National Topographic System Maps – Western PEI, 1939-1944
• National Topographic System Maps – Eastern PEI 1939-1944

NCPH Digital History Drop-in:

Along with some colleagues like Ron Rudin and Devon Eliliot I was part of a drop-in session at the National Council for Public History annual meeting in Ottawa, April 2013.  Historical GIS was discussed.  Facebook photo album here.  I’m pretty sure I learned more than I taught.