Changing Landscapes of Southern Ontario.
Clarke, John
Martin, Virgil. Changing Landscapes of Southern Ontario. Erin,
Ontario: The Boston Mills Press, 1988. Pp. 240. Illustrations.
There is a tradition within Geography and its systematic branches,
Cultural and Historical Geography, which treats its subject matter in
terms of the "evolution of landscape" or "the changing
landscape." The tradition is holistic, seeing landscape as the
expression of Man's values, or "ways and works," to use
the Philbrickian terminology. Most working in this genre present their
insights in simple descriptive prose, in the literature of the area and
period and in the cartographic and photographic heritage.
The photograph is rarely central, functioning often as a sort of
theatrical back drop against which the action is played. That is what
makes this work, the author's second, different. The work is an
exercise in rephotography, a process whereby a "scene" or
"event" is reproduced at some subsequent time period.
In the pre-photographic period, the description of landscape had to
rely on written accounts or painted pictures. Even when deliberately
designed to assist scientific observation--and several generations of
geographers, geologists and archaeologists were trained in
"field-sketching"--much subjectivity remained. While the
photographic record does not eliminate this subjectivity it does much to
reduce it, leaving traces of silver to be organised by the viewer
according to his or her experience, education and cultural
predisposition. In this way one may more readily agree on what is
"seen," although not necessarily on what it "means."
On this logic Martin searched the photographic record and captured
a second image of the event or place in an effort to establish
"change" by the juxtaposition of two or more images. In the
initial search of hundreds and perhaps thousands of photographs, a heavy
reliance was made upon the resources of the National Photographic
Collection of the National Archives of Canada. Almost half of the
published photographs are from this source; the rest are drawn from a
variety of County museums, the National Air-Photo Library, and the
Archives of Ontario-Hyrdo, to name but a few. The project was supported
by the Explorations Programme of the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts
Council and the Ontario Heritage Foundation.
Using clues internal to the original photograph, the exact location
from which this was captured was determined, Then by matching the
season, the time of day and the light conditions, a second photograph
was taken (the method is explained in detail in a three-page appendix)
and the changes of ten to 100 years are collapsed to the sharp contrasts
of two frozen moments. The oldest photo in the book dates from 1856; the
shortest interval between any two images was thirteen months.
While, perhaps tongue in cheek, the author claims that
rephotography falls within the warm embrace of Historical Geography, he
rightly notes that it offers "pertinent information to a wide range
of disciplines." The social and economic historian will find
material to his liking here as will the geographer.
Visual inspection of the map locating the site of particular
photographs suggests that South-western Ontario has perhaps received
more of its due desserts. This may well be a fortunate
"accident" for readers of the Review since it is here that
most of the urban activity takes place. Indeed, half the book is devoted
to the process of urbanisation. While the author recognises that the
landscape exists as a continuum and that some photographs in one chapter
could just as well be in another, he nonetheless chose to devote four
chapters explicitly to things urban. These are entitled "Urban
frontier," "Hamlets and Villages," "Towns" and
"Cities." Two other chapters deal with the related themes of
"Industry" and "Transportation." Given that in all
there are ten chapters, the urban theme is well treated.
Each chapter includes a brief essay. These are succinctly and
lucidly written. Martin exhibits considerable literary skill, utilising
the power of suggestion to conjure up image and illusion to minimise
text so that space can be given over to the photograph. The substantive
material is organised and written in a dynamic way, geared to convey the
changing impact of the phenomenon upon landscape rather than to simply
describe it per se. For example, within the space of two pages on the
broad theme of Agriculture, the author manages to discuss the varying
impact of the Amerindian and pioneer European phase of occupancy upon
the landscape, the effects of animal husbandry, the nature of the
frontier, the advantageous and deleterious effects of dependence upon
wheat, the subsequent mixed farming economy and its effects on the
nature of the farm family, and the impact of mechanisation.
The brevity of all this is disconcerting to those of us used to a
basically textual presentation with supporting photographs. Given that
this is a photographic essay with supporting text, this is a truly
remarkable achievement. The text exudes the geographer's concern
with integration and interrelationship and for its literary and
professional skills is well received by this reviewer. Yet, it is almost
too overpowering and all encompassing for the series of static
photographs, which, one presumes, purport to be the landscape
manifestations of the processes described.
Thirty-five photographs follow in this particular chapter, their
impact varying for each individual reader but never for this reviewer
equalling the sum of the parts. Like the points in some Pisarro painting
they remain just that, points in a picture painted in words in the
introductory pages. Could it be otherwise? Probably not, because of the
author's devotion to the photographic image. Given this, the author
perhaps wisely reports that: "The captions accompanying the
photographs are intended to provide basic information as well as a few
points of interest about the changes in each pair. Common sense and
limited space, however, imposed constraints, and it is left to the
reader to explore and interpret the bulk of the photographic
evidence."
What does this volume have to say to readers of the Urban History
Review? In Chapter 3, Martin describes the process by which rural farm
land is converted into city-scape as urban expansion and concomitant
land speculation drive farm values to a point where "optimum
economic rent" necessitates the conversion of low return grain or
pasture to subdivision or parking lot. Until the residential zone
reaches a particular location, the land is part of a zone of
"blight." It is perhaps because the author has lived through
this experience that the photographs in this section are so very apt.
Paired photographs, taken only two years apart, show the remnants of
trees pulled from superb farmland to be replaced by the non-descript
architecture which passes for modernity and "progress."
Another plate (#58) shows literally the signs of the city to come and
then farm buildings being razed to add to the recently constructed
shopping centre.
The most dramatic plate relates to a section of Etobicoke, which,
in the space of 15 years, was utterly transformed with the building of
Highway 401. But the plates on pages 68 and 69 are equally as
meaningful. On the former, cows graze in front of a barn-yard, located
three kilometres from Woodstock; in the background grain is stacked. In
the subsequent shot of this same location 70 years later, the cows,
grain and barn-yard are all gone; the landscape in an "eclipsed
form" awaits the inevitable factories and housing. Page 69 shows an
old rural road being remade as a city street, the street incorporating a
plaque commemorating a world famous dairy cow and the farm whence it
came!
In a chapter on hamlets and villages, Martin documents the steady
decline in the villages and hamlets as changing spatial relation ships
and transportation affect their functions, but plate 88 serves to remind
one that change can be revolutionary. This plate shows the village of
Iroquois whose heart was destroyed to accommodate the St. Lawrence
Seaway and its associated hydro-electric scheme.
The subsequent chapter distinguishes between village and town on
the basis, of course, of function and size, but also on the "rule
of thumb" that at the centre of a town, the "downtown",
would have at least a block built up with three storey structures. The
chapter reminds us of the ever present agent of fire as a force for
change, that the roads of these towns were not asphalt and required
boardwalks and that the past is manifest most especially at second floor
level since first floors have often been removed from the street because
of the aesthetic offence they create.
In chapter 6, entitled "Cities," the stress is upon
technology, which, Martin holds, set in motion the building of the city
by improvements in transportation, and which provided the means of
vertical expansion.
The chapter shows how much that was fine in our older cities has
been drastically affected by the banking industry, by the city fathers
and by those bent on "urban renewal." Much that was distinct
and pleasing has been removed to be replaced by the bland. This is well
illustrated by pages 124 and 125, which serve to illustrate not only the
changes in transportation from trolley-car to omnibus to automobile, but
the wanton destruction of much that was pleasing in St. George's
Square, Guelph.
It is also exemplified on pages 140 and 141, in photographs of
Toronto Street, in the city of that name. This, Martin notes, has been
described "as the street which died"; a street from which
"perhaps the finest grouping of nineteenth century commercial
buildings on the continent" was removed to accommodate a parking
garage and some office buildings, including an architectural monstrosity erected on behalf of Revenue Canada. Here, as else where, Martin does
not mince words, and since his values are mine I am sympathetic.
The chapter also contains useful photographs that illustrate the
process by which streetscapes are changed as fire destroys, as streets
are incorporated into the city replacing pine trees with telephone posts
and concrete buildings. There is much to lament here, but there are also
positive reminders. Our city streets have less mud and fewer
"pot-holes" and the twentieth-century city is, at night, much
better lit than its earlier counter-part, which in the absence of
street-lighting was pitch black unless the moon shone.
Well enough! There are other chapters germane to those interested
in things urban such as transportation and industry, chapters which can
also stand in their own right, but these three serve to "savour the
flavour."
This book will be of interest to urban and social historians, to
landscape architects and to cultural and historical geographers. It
presents some marked contrasts, even for those who might be expected to
be so familiar with landscape to admit to surprise; one of the most
telling demonstrations is that trees are now more abundant than at any
time during the past century. The book can be used as illustrative
material in teaching.
Who will buy it? I am not sure, but we will all be grateful that
this innovative piece exists. I am sure the author hopes that his book
will be a financial success. In a day and age in which government
philosophy seems to be that success is to be measured in dollars, we may
have to be grateful to the Ontario Heritage Foundation, the Canada
Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Office of the Secretary of
State for their insights: works such as this one may well remind us of
the important function of such agencies. My personal thanks to Virgil
Margin.
John Clarke
Department of Geography
Carleton University
Ottawa