Industry rediscovered: Technical knowledge as critical to understanding industrial sites in Eastern Canada II
My Session Status
It is widely accepted that understanding a historic place is a critical first step to guide subsequent management and conservation. Industrial sites present a number of challenges as understanding their form, function, design, boundaries, and conservation often requires a high degree of technical expertise and experience. In Canada, gaining this expertise and information sharing is hampered by a limited number of institutions offering training in industrial archaeology and the lack of a national professional and avocational organization. Additionally, legislation to protect and conserve heritage properties is inconsistent across the provinces and territories, and land-use planning will sometimes fail to appreciate the scale of industrial sites or their capacity for adaptive re-use. To address these challenges, this session will bring together industrial archaeologists and heritage planners from across eastern Canada to reflect on the importance of resource-specific technical knowledge, as well as best practice approaches for conserving and interpreting industrial heritage.
This session was originally proposed by Henry Cary
Sub Sessions
The study of the technical skills perfected for riveting during the construction of the first Quebec Bridge (1901-1907) exemplifies the technical challenge it represented at the time; the shoreline methods the engineers used were considered innovative. Although the riveted structure collapsed on August 28, 1907, before its inauguration, analysis of the riveting techniques used shows the evolution of technological advances with regard to riveting in North America. Our study of the...
In the 21st century, Telecommunication surrounds us and shapes daily every aspect of our contemporary societies. Yet the first seeds of its technologies did not appear until about the mid-19th century, expanding from then with unforeseeable developments. To this day, little is discussed in the Cultural Heritage field about the legacy of Telecommunication in comparison to other heritage categories. This is a problematic situation because many historic sites are abandoned after the obsolescen...
This paper will look at the history of the railway workshops at Point St. Charles, from the days of the Grand Trunk Railway to the last days of Canadian National Railways. It will look at the recent changes to the site, the attempts to re-use the remaining buildings in creative ways by various organizations. In the process, the paper will ask the following questions: Do you leave former industrial buildings to gradually deteriorate and become overgrown and run-down ruins? Alternatively, do yo...
