Testing StoryMap

Walking around Mirror Lake in the winter is not cold because of the snow. As a park, the paths are routinely cleared, though a few packed snow tracks reveal the passing of bobcats which recently ground away the serenity. The darkness of the paved path almost feels like a gaping tunnel around the park, drawing your gaze from the blinding white surrounding you.

The cold lashes out from the wind and deceptive sunshine, both biting your cheeks and burning your skin. The cold stems from a sense of time running out, aware you need to be across several city blocks and seated in a classroom in twenty minutes. The cold contrasts with a growing frustration at the lack of information available, despite the kindness of the individuals you have spoken to. And then you find it.

Tucked in front of a skeletal bush just off the path, sitting at hip-height and covered in snow you see an information signpost. You may just race up to it so fast you slip on a hidden glimmer of ice and crash into the bush, now tangled in dormant branches and dusted in snow. You may just hesitantly clop towards it, your boot soles by now more than frozen. Anticipation builds. What piece of Mirror Lake history will the humble little sign hold which the City Engineer did not know, which the City Secretary had no information for, which the Chamber of Commerce Office Administrator could only guess at?

Mittens at the ready, you gently brush at the snow, which trickles out onto the snowy lake, dancing around the cleared hockey rinks and little red nets. Beneath the snow rests a translucent layer of ice. The scraper sits on the passenger side floor of your car winking at you from the other side of the park, traffic hissing by on the highway seemingly miles away. So you brace a fingernail against the mitten, and begin to scrape for all you’re worth. The picture you uncover rests below.

Having taken the one picture, out in the cold for a total of fifteen seconds, your phone decides to shut off. You breathe in the chill air, looking up into the blinding snow and sunlight. Success! … And your nose begins to drip.

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Bare Bones and Beginnings

I already knew where the museum was in Camrose. My first semester at Augustana, when I was driving to school every day and would spend most of the day in Camrose, I wandered the parks. I wandered along the streets. The aimless wandering, walking, is how I got to know the streets of West Lethbridge so well. How I have begun to familiarize myself with Stettler. And there is this little hidden path in Camrose. Behind the park across from the school, between the houses. It at first appears like a little square greenspace. But following the paved path leads into a gully surrounded by trees, the path crumbling away to a dirt trail. The sounds of the vehicles and neighbourhood melt away, revealing the sound of branches and leaves in the breeze. If you really look, the homes bordering the gully and fences are visible, but the height difference sinks you into a hidden natural area. Whether the gully was too low to fill in, whether it was carved out after the neighbourhood arose, or how it came to be remains a mystery. My walks away from campus will unconsciously take me multiple times through this gully, as if I am magnetically drawn to the bubble of silence within it, the disappearance of human noise. The far side of the gully steeply emerges onto a fairly main road, and both the recreation and community centres, along with the museum, rest on a large open space mostly populated with grass and parking lots. It is always strange to emerge into concrete and sky after the short walk in the gully.

At the museum on Friday, January 19th, I met Dariya for the first time. She already knew who I was. Not just from the long-winded, overly polite email which outlined my project ideas and a couple queries, no. Last spring, we had both been in one of Petr’s classes, one on Russia. In a tiny classroom in the Faith and Life building, with nothing but daylight and the odd breeze to keep us awake after lunch we would sit and listen to the tragedies of a country so far away, from a voice who spoke often from personal experience. I always sat in the same chair. I barely knew one classmate to my right who would follow me out to Creative Writing directly following Russia, and we would chat on occasion. When he attended, I knew the classmate to my left, who often worked the same shift in the cafeteria with me the semester before.  Dariya apparently sat behind me. I had never looked back. I asked if she recognized the messy bun and old sweatshirts and she laughed, because I showed up to the museum wearing exactly that.

We discussed a few places in Camrose which could work for the project, and she took me back into a tall entryway bordered with bookcases and caged by boxes. A push-bar set of double doors presumably led back to the glaring white sunlight outside. The little library, categorized roughly by subject, held an uncatalogued collection of local volumes. The open door beyond led to where other artifacts and documents were stored. She gestured to it once, saying we might be able to find photographs of the location once we were able to narrow down our chosen place. Without looking, my time in that little library was spent glancing towards that secret but open room containing histories and stories beyond my imagination.

So I emailed Curtis earlier today. A few options are:

-The Normal School (now Rosehaven) and how this changed over the years. I have found in my preliminary search at the Museum some information on this, about the construction of the building, uses, its change to a seniors home. We could look further into landscaping and architecture, but to me I don’t see it so much as a natural landscape, though the history of the land it is on is a possibility.

-Mirror Slough (now Mirror Lake). This one would be very interesting, considering the changes this ‘natural’ area has undergone. I was not able to find too much information on this place, however, at the museum, though they likely have images over the years of the transformation. We could also contact Parks and possibly the City who may have archives on projects related to this park and its upkeep and development over the years. We could likely also speak with park planners who could give insight into future plans for the park (considering the road construction) and possibly past intentions and how those turned out. We are absolutely allowed to pursue oral histories for this course.

-Rotary Four Seasons Park. I have found history of the ski jump and a bit on the train trestle through this park, and I believe the Rotary Club would likely keep its own archives and have more information. Oral histories are also a possibility here.

-Augustana Campus over the years. Lots of information on this one, though it is not one of my favourites. I think there is an appeal in doing something beyond our campus, but this is always an option because of the plethora of resources.

-Railroads in Camrose. Railroads as environmental challenges? As I stated above, I found a bit of info on the train trestle, and in the books I searched there was info about railroad development and importance in Camrose. Railroad companies would likely also have their own archives which we could inquire into. I know from experience a bit about railroad interaction with environment, and it would be interesting to look into the impacts on the local environment, and how environments change around railroad tracks.

Of course, the ones I am excited about are the parks and railroads. The first two because of their natural element… the third just because I am a railroad nut.

I cannot narrow the list down to just two until I have a chance to speak with Curtis in person and hear his ideas. I hope that will be alright. But I greatly look forward to this project. And I do want to weave in oral histories into the project if we come across individuals with knowledge who are willing to open up and share. I think it would add unique video/audio elements to the website, as well as give a more personal layer to historical accounts of a place.

I realize I am most comfortable with words. When dealing with digital platforms, such as this blog, images look gorgeous, but I struggle with finding the perfect ones to express what I think. This will be an element of the course I strive to grow in: looking for the opportunities to take the perfect pictures in my environments, and then learning to become more comfortable with artistically weaving them into the digital projects.

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Nicholas Sheran Park, Lethbridge

Image from: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/110055757.jpg
Image from: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/110055757.jpg

Minus six degrees seemed almost tropical earlier in the afternoon on January 16th compared to the cold snaps since Christmas. In Stettler, we don’t usually get as many chinooks as Lethbridge. A day like today would have seen me in Nicholas Sheran Park if I was still there.

By now, Lethbridge probably has the snowdrift fencing up, so the one side of the park where you can enter anywhere with almost no paths would have had only a small entryway where there was a gap in the fence. Likely no one would have been using the disc golf towers set up throughout the park. The ‘lake’ may not be even fully frozen over, or pockets of thaw would have been pooling on top. The paths would have likely been clear, perhaps a bit damp, the rough pavement leaving no slick of water along the surface, just a glittering darkness.

When I say ‘lake’ I mean a set of squiggly shallow puddles, entirely man made. There are islands in the water, and rounded wooden bridges between areas of the park. I remember a spring picnic with a friend on one of the islands. We set the blanket out just behind the line of wooden posts set along the island as a retaining wall. Most are splitting and old, crumbling from their years of freezing and thawing. Yet the wooden bridges and red gravel paths, the paved walkways, all feel at home in the park, feel like they belong, evidence of the sheer scale of human involvement in the park’s creation. Only when sitting under the picnic shelter, set on a foundation of concrete, looking across the playground with a shredded tire base… only then does one feel the overt humanness that permeates the design. Perhaps we choose to simply ignore it, and take the park for that natural element we so crave when surrounded by city.

There is a boundary between the park and a school, delineated by a small creek along one side. In a far corner of this creek, a little ways into the park, there are some fallen trees angled towards the creek. Climbing and balancing on these trees brought back my childhood of climbing trees, of deep forests on Vancouver Island, of hiking without trails. To be able to feel the bark, to have part of the natural cycle of nature at my fingertips, facilitated engagement more than the static trees placed at specific intervals throughout the park.

Living less than five minutes away, this park held my heart and the soles of my runners have probably left fragments along the concrete paths. Many of the aimless worn paths in the grass helped ground my wandering thoughts. The park drew me in, making Lethbridge feel like home despite the temporary nature and uncertainty of student life.

Click to find out more about Nicholas Sheran Park.