Mapping the Welland Canals
and the St. Lawrence Seaway
with Google Earth

Colleen Beard, Daniel Macfarlane, and Jim Clifford

Introduction

Google Earth is a desktop virtual globe and mapping application that utilizes geospatial data held on the web to visualize the earth in three dimensions. Google Earth also allows users to document, incorporate, and map out their own data and other information onto the virtual globe.

For researchers and local history enthusiasts, the ability to incorporate historical documents into a digital geographic interface is especially compelling. Moreover, this easy-to-use free software considerably decreases the obstacles that might prevent a researcher from employing GIS.

The process of creating custom maps in Google Maps and Google Earth uses many of the same methods as more advanced researchers use with GIS software. It provides the option to create custom lines, polygons, and points. By consulting historical maps, we can add lines representing roads or railways, polygons for the outlines of building or agricultural fields, and points to identify particular places or to locate events. Google Earth also allows users to attach descriptions (using text and HTML code) to these lines, polygons, and points. Although Google Earth cannot link data to an attribute table or query a database in the same manner as GIS, the user can incorporate dates and build a basic spatially referenced digital historic map of a landscape.

Google is now constantly adding historical imagery to their web application, a development that will be well received by environmental historians and geographers. For example, aerial photographs are available for London, England, from 1945 on, along with the more recent series of satellite imagery. However, this information is more limited for Canada, and in the case of the St. Lawrence Valley the images only go back to 1995. The situation is better in the Niagara Region, in part because of aerial photographs uploaded to Google Earth by Sharon Janzen and Colleen Beard, one of the co-authors of this paper. Hopefully this example will lead other map librarians, geographers, and historians to share historical imagery through Google Earth. The “Layers” icon in Google Earth provides access to another huge collection of data, including features such as labels, places, roads, and pictures, but also third-party data from organizations such as NASA and National Geographic. These layers are provided by Google and partner organizations.

Among the layers currently available, the most useful for historical research and teaching is the David Rumsey Historical Maps collection (found under the gallery tab), which includes dozens of historical maps “pinned” or georeferenced onto their location on the digital globe. Working with layers approximates one of the central methods in HGIS, where researchers create and analyze layers of scanned and georeferenced historical maps. While there are a great number of georeferenced maps for the United States, fewer exist for Canada. It is possible, though not particularly advisable, to add more layers of historical imagery, found for example on the Library and Archives Canada website or from a university map library. The georeferencing tool provides a very basic method for comparing layers of historical maps with more recent satellite images. It should be noted, however, that the georeferencing functions in GIS software are considerably more functional than in Google Earth, and if you find yourself with a collection of scanned historical maps, it is probably best to invest the time and learn the more complicated GIS software.

Even after a researcher learns to work with Quantum GIS or ArcGIS, these Google products remain valuable for presenting digital maps. Many GIS programs allow researchers to export their layers as Google Earth files, making them accessible to collaborators and the public. Moreover, the Movie Maker function allows researchers to create dynamic presentations using Google satellite imagery. This free software and the associated web-based Google Maps is an essential digital mapping tool for learning, presenting, and teaching. University academics have free access to the Pro version of Google Earth, which expands the capacity to work with GIS files and provides higher resolution images for presentations, making it even more useful for historical researchers and teachers. Whether one uses Google Earth in conjunction with GIS software or on its own, it provides a low-budget and easily mastered option for including and presenting digital mapping in historical research. After starting digital mapping education on Google Earth, researchers are well prepared to then learn how to use ArcGIS; Google Earth is an extremely useful stepping stone.

The remainder of this chapter brings together two projects that have used Google Earth to explore the spatial history of the Welland Canals and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Historian Daniel Macfarlane works with Google Maps and Google Earth to facilitate his research on the history of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project, with assistance from Jim Clifford. Brock University Map Librarian Colleen Beard sets her focus on local landscape change, employing Google Earth to explore the three historic Welland Canals that traversed St. Catharines, Ontario, in the nineteenth century.

1. Mapping the
St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project1

The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project, built between 1954 and 1959, combined a major hydroelectric development in conjunction with a deep water navigation scheme. It was one of the greatest megaprojects of the twentieth century and is now the second largest transborder water control endeavour of its kind. The construction entailed a massive reshaping of the St. Lawrence environment. Over 40,000 acres of land were flooded to create Lake St. Lawrence, which served as the power pool for the international hydro dam between Cornwall and Massena. Since the St. Lawrence River forms the border between Ontario and New York (and the United States and Canada) before flowing through Quebec and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, modifications of river water levels necessitated bilateral cooperation between Canada and the United States. Half a century of complicated negotiations and failed compacts passed before the two countries reached a final agreement in the 1950s, a process that was extremely revealing for not only the history of Canadian–American relations and nationalisms but also North American environmental and technological history.

Over the course of my doctoral research on the Seaway, I encountered a great number of maps and other geographically referenced documents concerning the St. Lawrence project. These included blueprints and engineering plans ranging from the late nineteenth century to the early Cold War, from hand-drawn schemes to precise engineering documents. Blueprints of the International Rapids Section of the St. Lawrence River (Fig. 2.1), which was turned into a lake, were particularly fascinating because they showed the ways that the St. Lawrence landscape had been imagined in numbers and measurements. One of my major interests is the ways that North American societies, states, and experts in the mid-third of the twentieth century conceived of the engineering possibilities of riverine environments. This wealth of inherently spatial information presented opportunities to enrich my analysis.

Like many people, I had experience with Google Maps for generic purposes and had even made a few custom maps, but I wasn’t sure that the type of multilayered and interactive mapping I envisioned was within my capabilities. Given my lack of time and skills, taking on a large GIS project seemed impossible, but after I had completed my dissertation and started turning it into a book, Google Earth provided a free and accessible alternative that could be mastered relatively quickly. I sought out further training and education,2 and began exploring the custom maps feature of Google Maps. Soon I had marked off the main Seaway channel and found that I could use anchors and signs to designate key points of interest and different features. Based on other maps and blueprints, I began adding text, maps, and pictures to the various points of interest, then started tracking the lines of the older canals that the Seaway had replaced. In just a few combined hours, I had essentially produced the map displayed in this chapter. While this did not result in a comprehensive HGIS database, it did create a digital map with layers of spatial and descriptive information. This sparked my interest in digital mapping and started me on a path towards learning GIS. It also provided me with a map that could be exported into Google Earth, which uses technology that is closely related to GIS.3

Google Earth is a virtual globe that allows one to view the earth in three dimensions. For example, the tilt function can be used to look at the earth from an angle, rather than from straight above (this is similar to Google Maps, where the “Street View” option simulates the map’s appearance from the perspective of someone standing in front of a landmark, or even adjusts for time of day). This was a particularly effective way of following the Seaway route, as it permitted me to start at one end and track along. Using another option on the same tool bar, a custom tour can be recorded for easy playback.

I used Google Earth to highlight the navigation path of the actual Seaway, as well as ports and features of interest (Fig. 2.2). This provided a useful and potentially powerful visual and geographic representation for future readers but also allowed me to undertake spatial analysis in a way I could not have otherwise. Using the overlay feature, which will be explained in more detail below, I compared the map of the flooded International Rapids section of the St. Lawrence project (from approximately Prescott to Cornwall) with a historical picture to better understand how much land was flooded and where. The Seaway was digitally viewable from alternative angles, heights, and directions, providing unique perspectives on the subject.

Google Earth also allowed me to map the previous canal systems that predated the Seaway, including the Welland Canal. By adding points, lines, and polygons, I was able to create a custom map of the previous canal routes and the contemporary St. Lawrence Seaway, using satellite imagery to isolate and highlight the features that were pertinent to my research.

The flooding in the International Rapids sections of the St. Lawrence power project required the relocation of a number of riverine communities – the Lost Villages. Archival records, maps, and photographs indicate the placement of individual properties in the various Lost Villages. This information can be represented in Google Earth to reconstruct the layout of the village and, using different features, can be analyzed in order to determine patterns. For example, I was interested in showing how the government hoped to reorient the newly created communities towards the freeway rather than the river by comparing the distance distribution of residential areas in relation to schools, business centres and other amenities, the river, and the highway.

Even though the historical satellite imagery function of Google Earth does not yet permit me to view images from the time period before the St. Lawrence project was constructed, the fact that it did allow me to go back a decade was nonetheless helpful. The water clarity of the St. Lawrence has varied over the years due to different factors and the sliding historical imagery timeline enabled me to select images from years when the water (and the images themselves) was comparatively clear. Under such conditions, one can view the foundations and remains of many parts of the Lost Villages and transportation networks, even though they are under water, and trace the route of the now-inundated Highway 2. Combining the remains of infrastructure viewable in Google Earth with sufficient archival information makes it possible to create a map showing land covered by water before and after the flooding. To achieve this in Google Earth, I did an image overlay, putting a digitized version of an old map of the flooded village of Aultsville over top of a Google Earth satellite image of its present location (Fig. 2.3).

This was a relatively simple operation. Using the Google Earth overlay function only requires hitting the button along the top border, and selecting the file one wants to upload. Opaqueness – the amount one can see through the image being overlaid – is a key attribute of overlays and can easily be controlled. Using the lines of the main north–south street and old east–west Highway 2 as reference points, I lined up the old maps and the Google Earth image – a simplified form of the more sophisticated georeferencing that can be done with more advanced GIS software.

With this Aultsville overlay, the portions of the area and infrastructure that were submerged, as well as those that remained dry, are obvious. Images such as this have allowed me to discover and explore (if done with remote sensing technology, this would be called “groundtruthing”) the actual area depicted on the satellite imagery; this can also be used as a pedagogical tool, as I have taken several classes on field trips to this site. Because the water is relatively shallow here, one can walk the former streets of the town and find building foundations. In fact, when the water is low, one can walk close to the old river shoreline. One can easily count the number of properties that existed (and were flooded) and discover geographical features that influenced the pattern of the flooding. For example, the main streets and highways remain visible, while flooding was more prominent along the watersheds of tributary creeks and streams. Aided by other information, such as property registries or interviews with former residents, the spatial aspects of the community can be recovered.

2. Visualizing the Historic Welland Canals

In 2010, Brock University Map Librarian Colleen Beard set out to create an interactive visualization tool, or “mashup,” to explore the spatial history of the three historic Welland Canals. Inspired by the interest that was generated by the Welland Canal Summit, a public meeting held in 2009 by the Niagara regional government to discuss the heritage designation of the historic canal corridor, the Historic Welland Canals project aimed to increase awareness of the region’s canal heritage while showcasing the rich collections of the Brock University Map Library and other local collections. The project brought together hundreds of historic air photos, maps, plans, photographs, and audio interviews held at Brock University and other local collections. These documents were then scanned and embedded into the Google Earth framework to provide a geographic reference for exploring the many features of the three canals.

Fig. 2.4. The Welland Canal System within the Niagara Region. (Created in Google Earth Pro, 2011.)

The Welland Canal is a major route for ships navigating between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to circumvent Niagara Falls (Fig. 2.4). The canal was first established in 1829 by local businessmen to stimulate local and regional trade, but the government of Upper Canada soon saw its potential as a crucial artery for British North American trade. Over a period of one hundred years, the canal was rebuilt three times. All three routes used Port Dalhousie as the access point to the canals, with slight variations. The canals climbed the escarpment at Thorold, and then progressed to Lake Erie. The first and second canals had similar routes, each of which followed natural waterways through what is now downtown St. Catharines. The third canal, completed in 1881, deviated from Port Dalhousie and cut a straight diagonal path bypassing St. Catharines. It survives as a scar in the landscape visible primarily from the air. Some of its twenty-six stone-cut locks are still intact and visible where the canal intersects the current fourth canal at its eastern extent.

This project aims to increase the awareness and importance of the canals among the general public and government authorities, particularly within the context of the regional government’s application to Parks Canada for historic site designation. It will also serve as a significant resource for planners in making informed decisions associated with cultural, tourism, and environmental planning. For example, historical air photos are currently being used to examine the area where the fourth canal, currently in operation, intersects with the historic third canal, in order to determine zones of concern where tourism may interfere with the daily operation of the canal. Figure 2.5 illustrates the extent of the project content, where each point symbol on the map represents the location of a canal lock, feature, or a point of interest. Each placemark links to photographs, maps, or air photos that annotate and illustrate its history. Navigating the resources using Google Earth provides a virtual tour of canal history.4