Historical GIS Research in Canada ed. by Jennifer Bonnell, Marcel Fortin (review)

Canada has a rich tradition of collaboration between geographers and historians, as evident, for example, in the award-winning Historical Atlas of Canada’s three magnificent volumes published between 1987 and 1993. This tradition has recently deepened in profound ways as scholars embrace digital technologies in order to identify and understand the complex relationships among humans and between humans and the rest of the environment. In historical GIS (HGIS) research, mapping has become an analytic tool. In order to support and expand this approach, Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin, two key figures in HGIS, invited a diverse group of scholars to reflect both on their research process and on their interpretive insights. Along with an excellent introductory chapter, the results of this initiative comprise a compelling volume that will enhance scholarly debate as well as undergraduate and graduate courses. Published in the Canadian History and Environment Series, under the inspired leadership of Alan MacEachern, Historical GIS Research in Canada is available in print and open-access form.

This volume will attract a wide readership for multiple reasons. Bonnell and Fortin represent the emerging scholarly partnership between professors and librarians who co-create and pursue research projects in light of complementary abilities. Various chapters reflect the importance of this partnership, particularly on those campuses with institutional support for redefining librarians as active participants in research projects. Secondly, the volume combines attention to the “how” as well as the “what” of the new efforts to study the past systematically in terms of both time and place. The authors describe the challenges and opportunities of collaborative research, including the importance of substantive engagement based on mutual learning. Moreover, they discuss in helpful detail the value and difficulties of integrating evidence from quite different historical sources, ranging from census enumerations, land records, and newspapers to aerial photographs, forest inventories, and many more. The chapters include examples from Newfoundland to Victoria as well as from micro-historical and pan-Canadian projects that are now benefiting from the availability of geographic frameworks at the census subdivision level. The editors also compiled an appendix listing HGIS studies in Canada, including those focused on the Great Plains, where researchers are reinterpreting not only the meaning of provincial boundaries but also the continental context of the Canadian and American experiences.

While highlighting the encouraging steps forward in Canada and elsewhere, Bonnell and Fortin’s volume also implies that digitally enabled, collaborative HGIS initiatives require special effort. Scholars must characteristically overcome institutional legacies of 20th-century scholarship as well as restrictive public policies and continued systemic underfunding in the humanities and social sciences. The availability of new digital tools helps scholars deal with these limitations, but as the authors make clear in this impressive volume, more work is urgently needed to facilitate HGIS.