Helping communities map their common ground

On June 21, the sound of laughter and music echoed from the Highlands District. The community had gathered at Caleb Pike Heritage Park to celebrate the launch of their Highland Community Green Map, a fold-out, full-colour map of the region created through the collective efforts and contributions of the Highland community.

The Highlands Community Green Map is one of many community mapping projects supported by the University of Victoria through the Department of Geography’s Community Mapping Resource Centre (CMC), the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Office of Community-Based Research (OCBR).

“It was wonderful to see,” recalls UVic cartographer Ken Josephson, who attended the party. “It took two years for Highlanders and their community mapping partners to complete the project, and the result is a map alive with the language, sites and symbols of the Highlands people.” The Highlands map seems three-dimensional. Bold land masses, hand-crafted artwork and punchy graphic icons pinpoint the locations of a wide variety of places and green resources.

On the map legend are the usual sites for public parking and golfing, but you’ll also find special icons that point out a special vista or a significant tree. This personalized legend even contains an ode to dreams and visions for the future.

Hundreds of volunteer hours were contributed by the Highlands map steering committee, citizens and artists. The Highlands project was facilitated by Josephson and Adjunct Professor Charles Burnett (geography), and Maeve Lydon, consultant on community partnerships at the OCBR.

As Lydon explains in her guidebook Mapping Our Common Ground, “Every community has stories, recently or long buried in the lives and landscapes of our common ground. Community mapping connects geography to the history of our lives and the world around us.”

UVic’s Community Mapping Resource Centre provides resources and tools to help community groups make both printed and online, interactive maps.

The CMC is working with the Coastal and Oceans Resource Analysis Laboratory and their partner the SeaChange Marine Conservation Society to create a web-based map.

Their Coastal Community Green Map was designed to engage participants in studying the history of the flora and fauna along the Saanich Inlet and peninsula. This online, interactive map enables people to become part of the mapping process simply by clicking on selected icons and adding their stories and observations about the region.

“Online community mapping gives contributors so many options to participate,” says Josephson. “They can assemble a slide show, create artwork, insert photo essays, conduct interviews, make a video and even record a song.”

That’s just what’s happening with the UVic Community Green Map, with over 50 students registered as contributors, several of whom are pushing their learning boundaries. One student has taped a video tour of the campus and added it to the map. In another example, UVic student Melissa Hingston in Dr. Brenda Beckwith’s Environmental Studies 481 class, Exploring UVic’s Cultural Landscapes, discovered that the university grounds were originally home to a very productive strawberry farm.

Hingston went so far as to unseal an old musical gem related to the discovery titled “The Hamsterley Jam Farm Song.” The sheet music is posted to one of the farm site icons and the student has included a vocal recording of the song for visitors to enjoy.

Josephson says the beauty of community mapping is how it inspires all ages of people to talk about what they value in life and to work together to tell each other’s stories. “Community maps help everyone understand the bigger picture.”

The UVic Community Mapping Resource Centre is a joint project of the Department of Geography and the Common Ground Community Mapping Project and has received funding from the Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability, the Learning and Teaching Centre, the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Department of Geography and the Office of Community-Based Research.

It is affiliated with the New York-based Green Map program, which promotes sustainability and community participation in the local, natural and built environment through its Green Map System.

For more information or to get involved »