Going into the archives at Geneseo was really eye-opening for me because I had no idea just how many resources our library held. Liz, our archivist walked us around the Special Collections section of the library, showing us old maps with all the property owners, old historic architecture drawings and various other things such as papers in the Wadsworth collection showing property transactions and data on the town. Some of the stuff Liz showed us was not exactly pertinent to what we will be doing this semester, but it was really interesting to see the impressive quantity of old records that the library held and how detailed and personal things were.
When discussing the four places that most interested us, Lizzie and I decided upon the following: Letchworth State Park, the most obvious place because of its proximity and grand scale of nature it provides; the Retsof mine area, an old salt mine that collapsed and eventually filled with water; the Conesus lake area; and the old Genesee Valley Canal area, which eventually turned into a railroad and now is a greenway.
Letchworth is a place that I know will provide both the impressive scenic views that can inspire any kind of art, and also a wide variety of archival materials to work with. The library itself has lots of materials in its Genesee Valley Historical Collection and there is also a museum in the state park that I am sure will have lots of stuff we can work with. Letchworth intrigues me because of its grand scale of beauty and placehood. Its designation as a state park and the “Grand Canyon of the East” give it a place firmly set in the scope of “nature” in the past, present and future, which is nice to both observe how people used and viewed it as a place of nature. I have been to Letchworth many times and its extreme beauty of the canyons and waterfalls are sure to inspire interesting and beautiful writing. Given the scope of this place, both geographically and its natural intensity, and the scope of its available archives though, I know working with this place will take a lot of narrowing down and creativity to create something new and different.
The Retsof mine area is an area Lizzie brought to my attention, and before she talked to me about it I had no idea it existed. The mine collapsed in 1994, caused by (or causing) an earthquake, which led to sinkholes popping up and the mine filling with water. Lizzie showed me the place on Google Earth and you can see a square-shaped lake within some trees and surrounded by farmland now. This place is cool because it is a strange sort of nature that was accidentally and dangerously formed by man. The library has some legal papers on the mine, so there is definitely some archival information out there, but I think this spot in particular presents the most challenges regarding research. The uniqueness and instability of this place interests me though, and I think it would be particularly cool to look at this place in the context of Anthropocene.
Conesus Lake is a place I have also been to many times and have done some nature writing there because I find it very peaceful and beautiful. Lizzie and I thought of this place when we were meeting with Liz because she mentioned some materials the library has in the Genesee Valley Historical Collection. I like the idea of doing a project on Conesus Lake mostly because it is personally one of my favorite places that I have a lot of good memories regarding, but also because it might be cool also looking at it in the context of Anthropocene because of its algae problems and invasive species such as zebra mussels.
The final place is the site that I know the least about, yet I am very intrigued by it. This place was once the Genesee Valley Canal, then turned into a railroad, then morphed into a greenway. I have never been to this place, but I am interested to see if this place has a lot of remnants of its past lives. I think Lizzie and I will be able to find a fair amount of information about this place because of all the government funded projects surrounding it and the library has a section on their webpage now entitled 20th Century Remains of Genesee Valley Canal, so I am hoping we could find a fair amount of cool stuff surrounding this place. I think when looking at the surface of each of these places, this might be my favorite one because I think it challenges the definition of nature by its close association with man. This place is cool to me because it changes and morphs to fit the changing needs of society and I think it offers a lot of opportunity for nifty technological things that could emphasize and parallel the change with the events of man.