LET'S TAKE A WALK: SIX OUTDOOR HERITAGE SPACES IN TORONTO

Heritage Moments | Madison Carmichael 

---

One of the greatest surprises of completing the MMST program in Toronto was the city itself. I grew up in Mississauga, which is about forty minutes – depending on the traffic – from downtown Toronto. The suburban child’s mind easily paints an urban jungle paved from tip to toe in concrete and crowned with shining skyscrapers too tall to fathom. What that little kid misses, and what I was thrilled to discover, was the amount of heritage embedded within the city, outdoors and indoors, old and new. And so I thought, what with spring (hopefully) on its way, I'd take a leaf out of a fellow editor's book and set out on a long walk across Toronto to shine a light on some of the city’s fantastic outdoor heritage spaces and sites.

Ah, the CN Tower. Our favourite example of Brutalist architecture. Photograph courtesy of Madison Carmichael. 

1. The University of Toronto

This one is perhaps a given, but there is something to be said for the St. George campus at the University of Toronto. The University, founded in 1827, contains a whole slew of architectural styles from Gothic to Brutalist (looking at you, Robarts) to Victorian. It’s easy to read the long history of the University in the Philosopher’s Walk, the Soldiers’ Tower, and the 50 heritage buildings which are scattered across the campus.

A postcard from 1903. Even then, they were keen to highlight their older buildings. (Source)

2. The Beltline Trail

The Beltline Trail is what remains of a short-lived commuter railway from the 1890s. In the 1890s, it seemed as though Toronto was on the cusp of a suburban boom, and so the businessmen who formed the Belt Line Railway sought to capitalize on these future commuters. The Railway operated with a similar ethos as it would seem the GO Transit and other such rapid transit currently do: to connect the suburbs of Toronto to the downtown core. The Belt Line only operated for two years between 1892 and 1894, but to this day, Torontonians continue to use its right-of-way, albeit very differently. The Kay Gardner Beltline Park, which is the most notable enduring stretch of the Railway, is frequently used by runners, walkers, and cyclists. You can even spot the site of one of the original Belt Line stations or follow one of Toronto’s Discovery Walks.

The "Yonge Station" of the Belt Line Railway as it currently stands. Photograph courtesy of Madison Carmichael. 

3. Mount Pleasant Cemetery

Said Discovery Walk will also bring you to Mount Pleasant Cemetery. As one of Canada’s most historic cemeteries, Mount Pleasant has operated in Toronto since 1876. The cemetery houses a unique sort of heritage, one found in epitaphs and mausoleums, as well as in the sculptures and memorials found throughout the grounds. Mount Pleasant has several running and walking routes for you to try, if you’re up for exploring; and while you do, you can enjoy the cemetery’s abundance of trees, flower gardens, and wildlife – namely birds.

The many tombstone and memorials of Mount Pleasant are also indicative of Victorian burial practices and symbols. Check out that urn - and if you look closely, you can see a small veil draped over it. Photograph courtesy of Madison Carmichael. 

4. High Park

High Park is a park that knows how to multitask. In the century and a bit since the park was handed over to the City of Toronto, it’s acquired a pool, a zoo, playgrounds, and tennis courts, in addition to the open spaces frequently utilized by Torontonians for picnics, walks, etcetera. The park also contains Colborne Lodge, which is currently closed, but was originally owned by John and Jemima Howard, who deeded High Park to the City in 1873. A walking visitor can also enjoy the gardens and waterfront along Grenadier Pond. And of course, High Park is known for its cherry blossoms, which are set to bloom in the coming months, so look forward to that.

A shot of High Park. (Source)

5. Humber River

The Humber River was designated as a Canadian Heritage River in 1999, but it has a much longer history of human settlement, going back thousands of years. Presently, you can take the City’s Discovery Walk beginning around the Old Mill Subway station to explore its rich, multifaceted heritage, beginning the with the Old Mill and Old Mill Bridge. The Old Mill, dating to 1793, was part of Toronto’s first industrial buildings and helped to build Fort York. The walk then takes you to the Toronto Carrying Place Trail, which was used by Indigenous peoples for millennia as a trade route between Lake Ontario and lakes further north. The Humber River, Valley, and Marshes are also home to a variety of wildlife such as migratory birds and butterflies.

A more historic Humber River. And a cow. (Source)

Now something a little more current. See what I did there. (Source)

6. Distillery District

While the Distillery District is more generally known for its Christmas Market, the District is also a wonderful example of Toronto’s industrial heritage. It’s also a National Historic Site. Formed of more than 40 buildings, the Distillery District functioned as the Gooderham and Worts Distillery from 1859 to 1900. Gooderham and Worts largely produced whisky, and its location on the side of the Canadian National Railway mainline ensured its commercial success. The District is considered the largest and best-preserved collection of Victorian industrial architecture in North America, and in the past few decades the District has transformed into a pedestrian-oriented area filled with shops, art galleries, theatres, coffeehouses, and restaurants. While much of that is closed at present, the Distillery District is certainly worth a walk – for the buildings, if nothing else.

The Distillery District is worth a visit any time of the year! (Source)

For those keen to explore outdoor Toronto in the upcoming warmer months, I’d advise checking out the City of Toronto’s Discovery Walks and all the fantastic walking tours listed here! They cover far more than I’ve listed here, which gives you some indication as to just how much there is in the city to discover. Best of luck out there, and stay safe! 

PLAYING (WITH) HISTORY: ACCURACY, AGENCY, & ACCESS IN HISTORICAL VIDEO GAMES

 Heritage Moments | Madison Carmichael

---

A few recent articles here at Musings got me thinking about heritage, pop culture, and video games. I’m always interested to see how the past is portrayed in pop culture, whether that be historical fiction or a period drama, but video games are a relatively new media form on this particular scene. As gaming becomes a more culturally pervasive business, heritage scholars and historians have begun to dig into how games – in any form – present the past to players. 

Historical video games can be considered a form of public history, as they communicate the past to the public outside of traditional academia. Historical games take many forms – shooters (think Call of Duty), strategy, adventure, civilization-builders, etc. Some operate similarly to historical fiction novels. They feature fictitious protagonists operating within a historical setting, and they don’t change too much vis-à-vis historical narratives. Larger franchises such as Assassin’s Creed market itself on how it interacts and presents historical settings. In recent years, they’ve hit upon Victorian London, revolutionary France, Ancient Greece, etc. The 2017 installment, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, has a “Discovery Tour”, a gameplay mode that specifically allows players to go on interactive tours curated by historians and Egyptologists.

Other games are more conceptual, and this is largely where you find your strategy games and civilization-builders. Rather than showing a player the past, they tell you how the past might’ve functioned through systems and mechanisms. For example, snatching valuable resources in Sid Meier’s Civilization can make all the difference in whether your fledgling civilization becomes a world power or not. This very result tells you something about the role that resources may have played throughout history. 

As someone who sunk far too many hours into Civilization V and grew up backseat gaming my brother through various installments of the Assassin's Creed franchise, I find it endlessly fascinating to consider how video games do history. (Source)

But are they accurate? Does accuracy matter in these games? And just what constitutes accuracy in a historical video game?

Tara Jane Copplestone conducted 156 interviews of video game players, developers, and cultural heritage practitioners on the topic of accuracy. She found that players, creators, and even heritage practitioners often considered accuracy to be how closely the visual elements of a game resembled source material. Developers specifically defined accuracy as related to physical components and their ability to render them to a known standard – “reconstructing things correctly,” or in other words, constructing them as closely as possible to how they would have looked in the past. While there is certainly value in this approach, it does resemble the authoritarian approach to history that museums have had for much of their own history. The idea that there is one story to tell in history seems antithetical to the medium of video games, which inherently present multiple experiences as a result of the player’s agency to make choices and steer the narrative.

In fact, the interactivity of historical games has been known to produce counterfactual narratives. Many seem to think that this is a strength, making games an interesting medium for exploring the past. Jeremiah McCall insists that video games present an opportunity for exploration, control, and possibility, as well as serious consideration. To his mind, they can help to move history and heritage education beyond the philosophy of straight facts.

For some indication of what kind of games tend to be developed for this genre, and their breadth, Steam has categorizes them specifically as "Historical." (Source)

The definition of accuracy being how closely one might reconstruct something “correctly” certainly creates some stunning graphics. It’s the use of “correctly” that puts me ill at-ease. What does correct mean? Who defines correct?

Copplestone found, through her interviews, that several casual gamers thought that accuracy was contingent, based on the nature of heritage and history itself. One gamer argued that it was possible, and even necessary, for a game to have inaccuracies, because “isn’t history all just from different perspectives, so will always be somewhat inaccurate?” I’m not sure if I agree entirely, but I see their point. Some perspectives are, and have been historically, privileged over others, meaning that there are entire histories obscured or else plain silenced. This is especially critical when ideas of “accuracy” are weaponized in discourse surrounding historical media to sustain racist and sexist arguments for a lack of diversity and representation.

A player’s familiarity with the video game media form, and their awareness of their own agency within that form, lends itself to exploration. So, perhaps video games could provide a space to explore the past differently and to depart from the dominant narratives of history.

I could stare at this replica for hours. (Source)

As a final note on the interplay between video games, accuracy, and heritage, let’s take it back to 2019. After the fire at Notre Dame that year, many people turned to Assassin’s Creed Unity (2014), which was set in revolutionary France and possessed a virtual replica of the cathedral. It was created from scratch by artist Caroline Miousse at Ubisoft – a process which took around 5,000 hours.

In the wake of the fire, the ability to explore Notre Dame within the game apparently brought a great deal of comfort to those upset by the destruction. Sales of the game skyrocketed, and Ubisoft even made the game free for a time. In this CBC article, Ubisoft historian Maxime Durand admits that while the in-game cathedral is a one-to-one replica, it’s not totally accurate. Liberties had to be taken in order to optimize gameplay. Regardless, it’s clear that this replica mattered to people in that moment, and beyond that, it’s also a means for those who’ve never been to Paris – and who may not be able to visit – to access Notre Dame.

Much like period dramas, which tend to reach wide audiences, historical games reach many, many people, and whether they intend to or not, they teach their players something about history. The players' perception of that history – and the game’s overall portrayal of it – and whatever “accuracy” it may put forth is worth a think. How might these portrayals of heritage shape public history?

WHAT MAKES A HOUSE HISTORIC?: HISTORIC HOUSES AND HERITAGE LANDSCAPES

 Heritage Moments | Madison Carmichael

---

At any given time, regardless of where I live, I have an ever-evolving roster of my favourite old, pretty houses, and I tend to build walking routes around those houses. It’s fun to find such old looking places in increasingly modern cities and towns. What’s more interesting is that on some of those houses, in some places, you’ll sometimes see a small plaque affixed to the front. They look different, from city to city, but they all mean the same thing: this house has been designated as historical.

The plaque on the side of the Maitland house in question. Check out that limestone. Courtesy of Madison Carmichael.

One particular house that I had the pleasure of living in for a bit had such a plaque. I didn’t notice it at first, as the plaque was proportionally quite small to the rest of the two-story building, but both its age (1841) and its original role (Carriage House) intrigued me. At the time, I didn’t know much about the designation process, so I never did find out much more about the house; I’ve since done some digging.

The house in question sits on Maitland Street in Kingston, Ontario, which is within the bounds of Old Sydenham – a heritage district in the city. The limestone building – limestone being highly characteristic of older buildings in Kingston – was built for the Honourable John Hamilton. It was originally used, as previously mentioned, as a carriage house, as well as stables and as servants’ quarters. It is complimented by another similar former stable building that sits on the adjacent lot, and it sits behind a stone wall that spans several houses and marks the driveway for this house in particular. This wall, along with the two limestone buildings, helps to define the distinctly mid-19th century historic character of Maitland Street.

Here you can see the house as well as an equally historic stone wall on the left side of the photograph. (Source)

So: “is it historic or is it just old?” asks Shannon Dauphin Lee, contributing writer for “old house web,” an idea and advice website for old house enthusiasts. That’s the question du jour when it comes to heritage designations. Luckily for such enthusiasts, and heritage professionals everywhere, there’s legislation to help.

Lee explains that in the United States, the National Register of Historic Places goes by a set of rules to determine whether or not an old house is historic. In order to make the Register, a house must be associated with significant events in history or with the lives of people significant to the past; it must embody some distinctive characteristic or construction technique that makes it a unique structure; or it must yield important information about a certain time period.

Canadian designation criteria runs along a very similar vein. The Ontario Heritage Act confers the power to make designations and preserve heritage in Ontario to municipalities and to the province more broadly. Such parties can designate either individual properties as heritage sites or entire neighbourhoods as heritage districts. Under the OHA, a prospective property must have either: design or physical value, historical or associative value, or contextual value.

Toronto has many Heritage Conservation Districts, but Fort York was the first. This district includes Historic Fort York as well as the Garrison Common to the west of it. (Source)

So, how does our Maitland house shape up? Our Maitland house has classic limestone walls and distinctive windows, which mark the property as having design value. Such features also highlight its contextual value, a criteria which states that the property must be important in supporting the character of an era. As previously noted, the house evokes 19th-century Kingston and helps to define the overall historic character of the street. That’s two criteria satisfied. Next, let’s look at John Hamilton. According to the City of Kingston’s Property Inventory, much of the block upon which this house sits was purchased by Hamilton in 1841, who owned a steamboat line that operated on the St. Lawrence River and on Lake Ontario as well. Beyond his business, which contributed to Kingston’s early prominence as an important harbour, he was involved in local Kingston boards and the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada from 1841 to 1867. Thereafter, he sat on that same council as a senator. Hamilton’s involvement with the building imbues it with historic, associative value.

Another angle on the Maitland house. (Source)

A public survey in Vancouver found that the vast majority of residents thought that heritage buildings contributed to their sense of place – a special meaning or character that a geographic location has that gives a community its identity. In their report on that survey, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation put forth that “heritage buildings contribute to the physical and social fabric of the city.” Their value is not limited to their role as landmarks and icons; they also function as places that people can identify and interact with.

I think this can be said of almost anywhere. More locally, Toronto boasts thousands of properties that fall under the City’s Inventory of Heritage Properties. In this Inventory, properties are either “listed” or “designated,” the difference being that a listed property has only been recommended to the Inventory, implying that the City would like to see it preserved. However, a listed property has no legal protection. Conversely, a designated property requires the approval of City Council for any alterations or demolition. In a city like Toronto, which seems to be constantly under construction or considering new developments, heritage buildings play a critical role in representing the ever-transforming “physical and social fabric” of the city by memorializing older, enduring places that remain places that Torontonians interact and identify with.

But it’s not just 19th-century stone buildings. Toronto’s Heritage Preservation Services is in the process of expanding its scope in order to better value and include buildings from a variety of eras as well as the more recent past, like the 1960s and 1970s.

So, think of some of your favourite local landmarks! Do they have a designation? If so, what about them makes them historic, and what place do they have in your heritage landscape?

A LOOK AT HISTORICAL SOCIETIES: THEIR ROLE AND PLACE IN HERITAGE WORK

 Heritage Moments | Madison Carmichael 

---

When we think about the cultural sector, more specifically institutions and organizations work in heritage, oftentimes we think first of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums – those institutions that form the GLAM sector. But in many cases, such institutions were preceded by, and continue to operate alongside, historical societies. 

Simply put, a historical society is an organization that strives to preserve, collect, research, and interpret historical ephemera. They vary wildly in scope, specialization, and geographic jurisdiction. You most often find them under the guardianship of provinces, towns, or universities, though I promise you that they can be found almost anywhere. Regardless of their scope, historical societies are defined by their location, as this is what distinguishes them from one another. Unlike larger museums, historical societies are very particular, place-based organizations, collecting and preserving the artifacts and buildings significant to the location in question.

The Ontario Historical Society in 1914, though the society itself was founded in 1888. (Source) 

The first historical society in Canada was the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, which was established in 1824. It was followed by the Royal Nova Scotia Society in 1878, and the Ontario Historical Society was formed in 1888, following the publication of its journal Ontario History the year prior. Since the centennial in 1967, regional and local historical societies have sprouted like daisies. Despite their size, they operate almost exclusively on volunteer assistance. 

On the whole, North America saw its first historical societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The justification for their establishment is aptly – though very much in the spirit and verbiage of his time – summarized by Robert Seton, who read the following for the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia in 1885, "Historical societies sprung from a joint notion of men “of similar and conservative tastes – men of patriotism and religion – to preserve the records of the past, to confer upon present occurrences, and to form a rallying-point for future generations.” Patriotism and religion aside, he was able to capture the heart of historical society movement. The “amateur historians” who founded historical societies strived to promote and celebrate the growth of their communities. 

That being said, the communities in question at that time mostly consisted of prominent settler families and other such social elites. These "amateur historians" mostly worked to preserve the legacy of their ancestors, to commemorate local heroes, and preserve historic architecture. While conservation work provides communities a historic narrative, it only provides them with one. As historical societies moved into the twenty-first century, they have come to realize that the communities they still serve have transformed dramatically and may not connect to previously accepted narratives.

The Ontario Historical Society maps out societies across the province. (Source)

So, what role do historical societies currently play in cultural heritage? What is their place in their communities? Vince Michael states that people expect historical societies to preserve artifacts of the past, to be an archive of the community, and to accept donations of important historic items – which is to say that people tend to empty their attics into historical societies. This can be a double-edged sword, as you might end up with boxes upon boxes of who knows what, but some people keep gems in their attics. To be honest, most historic material – regardless of its perceived importance – can help cultural workers to contextualize, broaden, and deepen a community’s historical landscape. As such, the contemporary historical society jointly prioritizes conserving their artifacts and educating the public about its shared history, which is most often accomplished through the use of their collection. Michael critically notes, however, that the conservation of such artifacts and archives can only happen if people care about their shared heritage, so education and interpretation are equally important to the mission of any historical society. 

Historical societies generally have the same aim as museums: to make history more accessible, more relevant, and more useful. The difference is, they specifically strive to do so in a local context and their audience is indubitably their community. The work carried out by historical societies, often by volunteers and student interns, continues to increase awareness among communities of their history, encouraging others to investigate their familiar landscapes, to pursue genealogical research, and other such projects. 

If you’re curious about historical societies and other such associations in Ontario, the Ontario Historical Society has a helpful map here. 

THERE'S SOMETHING STRANGE IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD: HAUNTED WALKS, DARK TOURISM & LOCAL HERITAGE

 Heritage Moments | Madison Carmichael 

---

In 2014, Victoria, B.C. proudly branded itself as British Columbia’s “most haunted city.” At a cursory glance, this seems a strange way to promote tourism; but in 2014, being spooky was all the rage, as evidenced by Tristin Hopper’s article for the National Post, wherein he declared that a haunting could make the difference between profit and bankruptcy. According to John Adams, founder of Victoria’s Ghostly Walks, the public’s taste for the paranormal saw a marked increase in 2014. Not only were places willing to admit that they were haunted; they promoted it. Ghost walk tours are now offered in virtually every Canadian city.

These walking tours are wildly popular. The Haunted Walk, a tour agency operated out of Ottawa, Kingston, and Toronto, has hosted over 400,000 guests on such tours (including yours truly!) over the past 25 years. Put “ghost walk” into Google, and you’ll be bombarded with results announcing an astronomical number of such tours all across the country, regardless of locale. 

The allure of ghost tourism has, of course, found its way to heritage work. As a result, chilling walking experiences such as those offered by The Haunted Walk bolster local heritage work through the addition of ghost stories, paranormal intrigue, and even the outright macabre to the local, historical repertoire, attracting visitors and raising much needed revenue that supports heritage work.

Guide for A Haunted Walk in Ottawa Jail. You see the spook? (Source)

Beatriz Rodriguez Garcia describes ghost tourism as the visitation of places associated with ghosts, such as cemeteries, haunted houses, castles, and historic towns. Ghost tours are structured very similarly to your run-of-the-mill tour, but they are done so in direct contrast to such tours, offering participants an alternative experience —namely, a spooky one. 

While these tours vary immensely based on location, they all have a similar structure: lantern-wielding guides lead participants along a route through a city or site, stopping along the way to tell ghostly or else esoteric stories at important landmarks. Most tours occur around evening time, as the encroaching darkness adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to the spooky stories. These tour routes depend on the stories they tell — some lean on existing ghost stories, but many organizations will do additional, archival research — as the tours map either directly onto the places where the events took place or nearby.

Edinburgh is colloquially considered one of the world's most haunted cities, and it certainly has a dark history to back that up. (Source)

Ghost tourism is oft regarded as a lighter form of dark tourism, which is most simply defined as tourism associated with sites of death, disaster, or difficult heritage. Dark tourism is a recent entry to the heritage industry and a highly contested one at that. Ghost tourism sits rather awkwardly in dark tourism literature, as most scholars consider it a frivolous and superficial form of entertainment. The “frivolity,” as it were, derives from the fact that ghost tours focus mostly on the paranormal, and they tend to mix entertainment, fun, and education in with the spooks. On the whole, ghost tours are an emerging, geographically dynamic form of dark tourism. 

But as with most aspects of dark tourism, there is an ethical dimension to consider. In her study of ghost tours in Edinburgh and Toledo, respectively, established and emergent destinations for ghost tourism, Rodriguez Garcia surmised that both tour companies considered their tours in the same light as any other tourist activity: an indirect means to preserve local history and, since their sites were privy to greater atrocities and more macabre stories, a means to promote awareness that would prevent such events from occurring again. The ethical issue arises from charging ticket prices for the telling of “horrible and macabre stories” in these cities, as their tours were largely related to tales of human. However, she does admit that ghost tours are mainly entertaining and perhaps a dash educational, and so as with any other service commodity, there is a fee.

This particular haunted, historic inn caught my eye on my Haunted Walk. Every time I walked past this inn after I took that tour, I thought about the ghost. (Courtesy of Madison Carmichael)

Last summer, on a lark, I went on a Haunted Walk. This was deeply uncharacteristic of me, as my threshold for ghost stories has always been very, very low. But I was a tour guide in Kingston, Ontario, at the time, so while I knew a great deal of the local history already, I was intrigued by the idea of rereading streets I’d walked for five years previously in the context of ghosts. 

This is the strength of ghost tours; they are just as enticing to locals as they are to tourists. Locals map their daily lives onto particular routes and specific landmarks. In contrast to tourists, they have an intensely personal sense of geography of a given space. My haunted walk cast all the gorgeous little historic inns near my neighbourhood in Kingston, many of which I walked by to get coffee or go to work, in a truly creepy light. 

It’s been argued that the benefits of bringing paranormal tourism to historic sites are many. Local ghost tour groups interpret historic sites as well as their ghosts, and in the process, they teach visitors about their historical significance. The intermingling of the haunted and the historical allows for ghostly reinterpretation of the site and renewed interest in its history for demographics new and old, bolstering local heritage in the process. 

The Haunted Walk proclaims that “You’ll never look at the city the same way again!” They certainly refer to the inherent spook of the tours, but ghost tours do add new context to the ordinary. And whether you believe in ghosts or not, there’s always a bit of history mixed in there to make up the difference. 

THE NOSE KNOWS: HISTORIC SCENTS AS INTANGIBLE HERITAGE

 Heritage Moments | Madison Carmichael 

---

There are certain smells that stick with you. The chemical tang of chlorine transports me to a childhood of community centre swimming pools. One particular kind of tea takes me back to the early mornings of my undergrad, where I bought that very specific tea from student-run coffee shops for a neat $1.80 entirely too often. Smells remind you of people, places, and things, or perhaps an entire experience. As I’ve hinted, they can be intensely nostalgic. It is that very effect of odours – be it physical, psychological, or emotional – that inspires Cecilia Bembibre, a researcher at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage, to argue that odour influences the way that we engage with history and that, as a result, experiencing the smells of the past can enrich our understanding of it and allow us to engage with our history in a more emotional way. 

I stumbled onto her research project eons ago – i.e., back in January – in an article written for the BBC by Miguel Trancozo Trevino. The title snatched my attention from the start: “The people trying to save scents from extinction.” How dramatic, I thought, how exciting. But what was more exciting was the recognition of smell as a form of intangible heritage and its attendant question: if smells could be cultural heritage, how might we identify, protect, and conserve them?

Bembibre's research focuses on the preservation of smells. (Source)

There are certain scents that threaten to disappear from common, olfactory parlance. The smell of old books, for example, is paradoxically threatened by their own decay and efforts to preserve them; as they disappear into temperature-controlled vaults, accessed by only a select few, public access and experience of that scent wanes. 

But this is not a matter solely confined to old books. Similar concerns are raised over any number of historic ephemera. Bembibre’s research works to develop techniques to recover “extinct” scents from the past and to preserve those around today for the future. Like a great deal of intangible heritage, scent is often overlooked. Indeed, scent as a form of intangible heritage only really entered the international heritage scene in 2018, when the perfume-making region of Grasse in France applied to UNESCO for the recognition of their olfactory traditions as intangible heritage. As such, the cultural significance of scents is often tied to place, as the smells and sounds associated with a site can be included as part of the site’s aesthetic value, therefore marking those scents and sounds as an intangible property of that tangible heritage. But much in the way of Grasse, the cultural significance of scent can also be tied to aspects of cultural heritage like tradition and language.

The Pays de Grasse is well-known for its perfume since the 18th-century. (Source) 

Bembibre’s work to preserve scent is a marriage of chemistry and interpretation. One method includes exposing a polymer fibre to the odour, allowing for the smell-causing chemical to stick to it. From there, that sample can be analyzed in a lab. Another separates and identifies the compound from the gas sample. And a third uses the nose itself, consulting with panels to describe the scents or with expert “noses” – often perfumers or scent designers. Bembibre states that the human element is critical; if these scents are to be preserved for the future, then our experience of them is just as important as their chemical composition. 

With these methods, she has extracted the smells of old leather gloves, ancient books, and mould. She’s also worked to reinterpret the scent of potpourri from 1750 and the old books housed in St. Paul’s cathedral.

A peek into their process. (Source)

In her paper on this subject, the smell of historic paper was used as a case study. The smell of historic paper, or old books, is ubiquitous; second-hand bookstores, or else the very unvisited stacks of a university library, are rife with such a smell – which Bembibre identifies as “a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.” Through two different routes, she sought to recreate that very smell. Using the methods listed above, she produced a literal chemical recreation of the scent. The other was “an intuitive interpretation” by perfumer Sarah McCartney. 

Bembibre then asked panels to identify which smell resembled an old library best. She was surprised by their response, because it was nearly split. In Trevino’s article for the BBC, she added that if anything, more people chose the interpreted scent rather than the extracted one. 

And so comes a question of authenticity that has no easy answers. If an artist’s reproduction can evoke an olfactory experience to the same degree as a chemical mimic, is it then necessary to duplicate a scent at its chemical level? Conversely, if the smell is not the precise chemical makeup of the original scent, is it truly authentic?

The astonishing amount of candles that mimic the smell of old books and libraries speaks to their cultural significance. (Source)

Putting that aside, here’s another difficult question: which smells should be preserved? It’s a question as political and pressing as any that currently concerns any GLAM institution’s collecting policy. 

There’s a feeling that the significance of scent ought to be concerned with how they are associated with people and their values, or how they are associated with collective memory. These values and memories are many and multifaceted – historic, aesthetic, cultural, scientific, communal, emotional – and determining their importance would necessitate consultation with both experts and communities. The eventual creation of any archive of smells would need to be incredibly mindful of power and privilege, and how that factors into what is preserved and what is not. 

Our knowledge of the past is odourless, according to Bembibre. But on her website, she also poses the question: what smell would you take into the future? What smell would you like to see preserved? Give it a think, and think too on how such considerations may transform the landscape of cultural heritage as we move into that future. 

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE DISASTER: THE LOSS OF THE S.S. FLORIZEL FROM THE ADMIRALTY COMMUNICATIONS MUSEUM

Exhibition Reviews | Madison Carmichael 

---

Prior to stumbling upon this exhibition, I had never heard of the S.S Florizel nor any associated tragedy; I find that local history in Canada tends to stay local, which is why online exhibitions such as this, which seek to share local and community history more broadly are – in my personal opinion – so very important. 

“The Loss of the SS Florizel” is an exhibition produced by the Admiralty House Communications Museum, which can be found just outside of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The museum endeavors to intrigue visitors with artifacts from the region’s past, the history of wireless communication, and the tragedy of the S.S. Florizel. Like an earlier exhibition reviewed this summer, this exhibition was also hosted by the Virtual Museum as part of their Community Stories series, which explores the stories and treasures, past and present, of hundreds of communities across Canada.

The opening page to the exhibition. The ship imaged here is the S.S. Florizel. (Source)

It should be noted: this is not a happy story. It’s right there in the name. This is a story of loss. I think it was that very fact that pushed me to write this review, for it was how this exhibition told such a story that caught me. The final journey of the S.S. Florizel, unbeknownst to its crew and passengers, began in St. John’s on February 23, 1918, not long after the Halifax Explosion. That event informed why some of the passengers chose to take this voyage – to check on family, to help with reconstruction efforts – but on the whole, it was meant to be a routine trip. It wasn’t. A storm caused the vessel to crash into a rocky reef near Cappahayden, Newfoundland, and 93 people out of an initial 137 died. 

According to the exhibition itself, the exhibit “tells the story of this tragedy through oral histories, archival records, and artifacts from individuals connected to the shipwreck, whether they were on the S.S. Florizel or part of the rescue efforts.” For me, while the story itself was compelling, and had me intently reading right to its close, it was their source material that was most striking.

The first section of the exhibition details the ship's departure. You can also see several of the subheadings that divide this exhibition. (Source)

The subheadings which form this exhibition’s structure demonstrate straightaway that this exhibition both follows a narrative structure and heavily utilizes archival records. Following an introductory section titled “All Aboard,” which effectively sets the stage through the use of present-tense narration, are two sections titled “Personal Reasons for Traveling” and “Travelling for Business.” These sections feature short descriptions of several passengers who would be taking the S.S. Florizel and their reasons for doing so. At the bottom of each page is a photograph of objects from the ship, descriptions thereof, and a mention of their provenance. There were similar descriptions of the crew of the ship as well. I was wildly impressed by just how much the exhibition knew about both the passengers of the S.S Florizel and also those who manned it – how they had a picture to put to name for most folks they listed. 

From there, the narrative turns to the tragedy itself, wherein the ship runs aground a rocky reef and was, according to its distress signal, “fast going to pieces.” The exhibition includes a reproduction audio clip of the S.S. Florizel’s distress signal.

The exhibition offers an audio reproduction of the distress signal sent out by the S.S. Florizel as well as the corresponding transcript. (Source)

It would take about twelve hours for the first rescue ship to arrive, though no one would be removed from the wrecked ship until the next morning due to the ongoing storm. The exhibition briefly details a select few of the passengers who died before rescue arrived, and I must admit that several of the descriptions kind of punched me in the gut, emotionally speaking. The exhibition swiftly moves on to the rescue efforts from land by folks from nearby towns Cappahayden and Renews, a section which is enhanced by the inclusion of a rescuer’s account in the form of an audio clip and transcript, as told by a rescuer’s daughter in an interview with exhibition staff. Two rescuers are named and detailed in greater depth. 

The exhibition also details the following inquiry into the incident as well as continued histories of those who were on the rescue ships that came to the S.S. Florizel’s aid.

This statue, commissioned in memory of Betty Munn, who died aboard the S.S. Florizel, still stands in Bowring Park in St. John's. (Source)

In the grand scheme of the world and of history, the loss of the S.S. Florizel is admittedly small. But to these people, and to these places, it was enormous and all-encompassing, as tragedy often is. It rippled through communities in St. John, Halifax, and New York, spurring memorials in the form of stained-glass windows and cemetery monuments. Perhaps most wrenching is the commission of a statue of Peter Pan by Sir Edgar Bowring, to better remember his granddaughter Betty Munn – who drowned on the S.S. Florizel alongside her father – another child who would never grow up. 

Ah, I thought. Well, that hurts. 

This emotional response is perhaps the great strength and the sticking point of this exhibition, for me. Oftentimes, historical tragedies can subsume the people within them. It was the intent of this exhibition, as said in their Acknowledgements, to leverage personal stories to give voice once more to those who survived and those who did not through the use of archival images, documents from community members, and oral history interviews. 

Through these means, the Admiralty Communications Museum hoped to tell a story filled with people who, though they may be a century away, had similar thoughts, hopes, and motivations to those that we have today. I must say that they really did bring the crew and passengers of the S.S Florizel out from behind the tragedy to give them voice once more, and that in doing so, they told perhaps not a happy story, but a worthwhile one.

You can check out "The Loss of the S.S. Florizel" here.

JUST HORSING AROUND: "THE COLOSSUS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI" COURTESY OF EUROPEANA

Exhibition Reviews | Madison Carmichael

---

I don’t know about you, but an unfinished project haunts me like little else. One has to wonder if Leonardo da Vinci felt the same about his never-completed equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza. Luckily for us, the reams of notes and drawings of said monument remain, preserved by the National Library of Spain, so a virtual reconstruction of Leonardo’s design and casting process is now possible. The story of the unfinished equestrian bronze comprises “The Colossus of Leonardo da Vinci,” a special online exhibition produced by Europeana, in collaboration with the National Library of Spain and the Museo Galileo. 

Armed with Leonardo’s original notes and drawings, experts from Florence’s Museo Galileo sought to marry his original manuscripts to new digital reconstructions so as to finally build the bronze that was never built – or else to bring it to life as best they could, with the technology available to us now. 

The title page of the online exhibition. This functions largely like the introductory panel, but it also gives a sneak peek at one of Leonardo's designs. (Source)

Much like I mentioned last month, online and digital exhibitions ask that you create your own atmosphere. While my current residence is not nearly as chaotic as it was, I once again headed over to YouTube to see what I could find in terms of ambiance and soundscapes (here are a few). 

“The Colossus of Leonardo da Vinci” has seven chapters: the protagonists, two concepts for the statue, an innovative moulding process, a multi-furnace foundry, two different casting methods, the project is abandoned, and modern evocations. This chaptered approach guides you through Leonardo’s design and engineering process, the events that led to the project’s abandonment (an invasion, which necessitated that the bronze set aside for the monument be used to cast artillery instead, followed by an occupation and subsequent fall of the Sforzas), and modern evocations of the monument.

A portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza found within the exhibition. He was the original patron of the project. (Source)

In its structure, “The Colossus of Leonardo da Vinci” straddles the past and the present. The exhibition begins in the late 1400s, when the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, conceived of an equestrian monument to celebrate his dynasty. The project was propelled by his successor, and when Leonardo received the commission for this project, he proceeded to absolutely run away with it. In perhaps a characteristic move, Leonardo transformed the commission into an “epic undertaking,” one that was entirely unheard of in both the history of art and in the scope of casting methods, as he set out to produce this enormous, equestrian monument – I say enormous, because this monument would require more than sixty tons of bronze and would stand over seven metres tall – in a single cast. 

From here, the exhibition moves through the two concept designs for the monument – a rider on a prancing horse vs. a walking horse – the moulding process, which was enormously complex, the foundry Leonardo envisioned for the casting process, and two different casting processes that he considered.

This 3D reconstruction renders the vertical foundry system which comprised of one of Leonardo's concepts for casting. It was done by Andrea Bernadoni and Riccardo Braga of the Museo Galileo. (Source)

This image depict the original drawings as done by Leonardo, conceptualizing a foundry to cast the horse. Compare it to the 3D rendering above! (Source)

This exhibition takes an enormously interdisciplinary approach to one, unfinished project of Leonardo da Vinci’s. It is at times historical, or art historical, and at others it is deeply technical, drawing on technological design and renderings. As someone deeply interested in the historical contexts of most things, I found it fascinating to peer into this specific moment in time, and the events surrounding it, and to learn through Leonardo’s notes and drawings more about the technology of the 1400s and about how, even hypothetically, a monument may have been cast at this point in time. 

As mentioned, what’s interesting about this exhibition is how it ties the historical to the present – how it straddles the past and the present. This is most evident in the images interspersed throughout. In the chapters detailing the design and engineering process, modern 3D reconstructions are displayed alongside the historical equivalents done by Leonardo. It is in this way that this exhibition endeavors to bring this unfinished monument to life, using the tools we now have in concert with the plans Leonardo left behind.

Two modern evocations of this very project exist worldwide! (Source)

The exhibition closes with two modern evocations, or realizations, of Leonardo’s unfinished monument. One was completed under the direction of Hidemichi Tanaka, which was unveiled in 1989 in Nagoya City, Japan. The other was completed by American artist Nina Akamu, which was inaugurated in Milan in 1999, and it can still be found in front of the hippodrome of San Siro. 

There’s something poetic in that, I think. While neither of these modern projects were developed using the casting techniques that Leonardo penned just about five hundred years ago, they were both completed regardless. Add to that the 3D reconstructions completed by the Museo Galileo that do portray his techniques, it makes me feel like his unfinished monument has been finished, in a way. 

After all, a bronze, equestrian monument does stand in Milan, at what was ostensibly the planned site of Leonardo’s original horse. So, perhaps we have indeed brought this unfinished project to life, as best as we are able. 

NOTHING FISHY TO SEE HERE: "FROM TIDES TO TINS" AT THE GULF OF GEORGIA CANNERY NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

Exhibition Reviews | Madison Carmichael

---

Due to the global pandemic crisis, museums and galleries the world over were forced to close back in March, and months later, they remain closed. So, as you might imagine, Exhibition Reviews will look a little different this summer. Museums and galleries in recent months have moved quickly to redirect their visitors towards digital offerings, which presents us with the unique opportunity to explore such offerings and delve into the world of digital and online exhibitions. 

Given that I cannot physically go to a museum exhibition at present, I decided to cast a wide net (pun intended) and find something far from home and foreign to me; and so I landed upon “From Tides to Tins: Salmon Canning in BC,” an online exhibition about the history of Canada’s west coast salmon canning industry from 1870 to 2017. 

“From Tides to Tins” was produced in collaboration by the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, which is a historical site, and the Virtual Museum. The latter is currently run under the auspices of the Canadian Museum of History as a funding program to help institutions mount their own online exhibitions, which they then host on virtualmuseum.ca.

This page could function much like an introductory panel. It lays out what the exhibition will consist of. (Source)

Most exhibitions work very hard to immerse you. They employ evocative visuals, purposed lighting, and looping soundscapes. With an online exhibition, housed solely on personal technology and more critically within your home, it is very much up to you to create the atmosphere. Times being what they are, my current residence is filled with the myriad cacophony of my family and dog, to say nothing of the dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer running in the background, and so interruptions are a constant. As such, I headed over to YouTube to see what I could find in terms of soundscapes (here are a few). They tended toward the fantastical, but the sound of water, with seagulls echoing behind it, did the job well enough. 

“From Tides to Tins” consists of four overarching sections: Timeline, Working the Line, Map, and Game. The timeline takes you through more than a hundred years of the west coast fishing industry: from time immemorial to our very recent past, divided into distinct periodical segments. It is enormously comprehensive, covering early trade agreements between Indigenous people such as the Stó:lo and fur traders, mechanization, immigration, and the labour movement.

The timeline portion of the exhibition. Interestingly, you can either follow it temporally or by theme (i.e., global events, social change, environment) - a good use of its digital format. (Source)

In telling the history of this region and trade in this fashion, “From Tides to Tins” acknowledges, early and explicitly, the ethnic diversity of the labourers within the fishing industry, and it does not shy away from the racism inherent to policies of the time (i.e., the Head Tax) and how they influenced and were influenced by whichever industry required labourers at any given time. In doing so, the timeline endeavors to tell a more complete and comprehensive history of this region and those who laboured within it. This is also shown in the photos used to demonstrate the various steps of “Working the Line:” the various archival sources are representative of the Chinese, Japanese, Indigenous, and European men and women who worked either on fishing boats or in canneries all along the Canadian west coast. 

The timeline also notes the rise of over-fishing and accompanying regulations such as the Wilmot Commissions (1890 & 1892) and the Pacific Salmon Treaty (1930/37), which brings ecology into the conversation and invites the visitor to consider how this successful industry may have affected local salmon populations over time. 

From the portion of "Working the Line" entitled "Cleaning." The caption below the photo reads: "Indigenous women wash fish during canning preparation at a BC cannery. The photo is courtesy of the Delta Museum and Archives. (Source)

“Working the Line” and the “Map” portions of the exhibition paint a comprehensive picture of just how numerous and widespread canneries were along the western coast of British Columbia as well as what work within one would have entailed. The exhibition breaks this down into a fourteen-step process, from unloading fish from boats to packing and shipping. Each step details precisely how it would have been done and is accompanied by a short video from an industrial film depicting commercial salmon fishing and canning released in 1948. 

The “Map” is interactive. A sliding scale allows you to move temporally from 1870 to 2018, thereby watching canneries on the west coast diminish in number as time goes on. You are able to click on each one to get a little bit of detail about the cannery in question.

The map in question! Each red dot is a cannery, which you can click on to learn more about it. (Source)

As you might imagine, the fishing industry of the west coast is fairly far – both physically and figuratively – from my Ontarian suburbanite upbringing, so I found that I learned a lot. The great strength of it being an online exhibition was that I was able to experience local history without being local to it. While it may be felt at present that the in-person experience of museum-going cannot be replicated by the digital, the digital does allow you to go farther than you might be able to ordinarily. 

That being said, the reality of online exhibitions is that you’ll do a lot of reading. Which is not to say that that isn’t what you do in a live exhibition, but it’s usually accompanied the act of walking between panels, by immersive soundscapes, and by videos or hands-on activities. 

That brings me to the final part of this exhibition: “Build Your Own Cannery: A Game,” wherein you are put in charge of a new cannery and told to keep costs down and can as much salmon as humanly possible. 

You can choose your location along the B.C coast, your time period, and the name your cannery. I am now the proud proprietor of "Nothing Fishy Here" Cannery. (Source)

This is what I get for listening to my employees and keeping their hours low when they were upset. (Source)

Thanks, Mr. Anderson.

Check out “From Tides to Tins” here!