Marvin McInnis challenges the widely held belief that Canadian agriculture was adversely affected by the First World War. His talk at the University of Guelph Rural Roundtable yesterday, presented a nuanced and revisionary look at the common story that wartime demand drove Canadian farmers to double acreage devoted to wheat and unwittingly create a dangerous monoculture. A situation that led to a massive collapse in GNP when the price of wheat collapsed after the war. McInnis’ earlier paper “Canadian Economic Development in the Wheat Boom Era” sets an appropriate stage for this further discussion. In this paper, McInnis questions the conclusion that Canada’s rapid economic growth during the first decade and a half of the twentieth century rested on western settlement and the ‘wheat boom.’ This has been a persistent and widely accepted view until more recent re-examination has questioned the role of wheat in this growth and determination that other factors were of greater consequence to this growth. This story though has supported the consequent one that envisions wartime demand and response to it as greatly affecting Canada’s agricultural economy.

McInnis’ counter analysis separates western agriculture from eastern/central agricultural models to determine real growth determinants and also evaluation of the rather sluggish rebound in GNP growth following WWI. The commonly held vision of mass migration to the prairies and the subsequent breaking of new land leading to verdant crops of wheat has gone hand in hand with a picture of Canada as the wheat bowl for the Empire during the time of the First World War. It seems plausible and has remained largely free of scrutiny. The approach adopted by McInnis is to break the story down into component parts and test the veracity of each. What he is able to demonstrate is that wheat settlement took place prior to the war, specifically during 1910–1912. Additionally, there was subsequent population and acreage growth that naturally continued during the war and is unconnected to wartime to impetus. The initial claim that there was a 48% increase in wheat acreage in the west during 1915 begs examination. Where did this acreage come from? As McInnis shows, there didn’t seem to be any complementary drop in acreage dedicated to other crops, or claims of this vast amount being newly brought under cultivation. So where do the numbers come from? Through analysis, he found that circular reference between census enumerators and agricultural reporters led to a double counting of the number of farms and the number of acres under cultivation. This starts to lend some greater appreciation of a truer picture of this supposed growth. By revising for these findings, McInnis shows that growth was far less rapid, and was actually relatively stable throughout the entire period. While this doesn’t suggest that wartime demand had no effect, it does suggest that what demand there was probably balanced a possible slight decrease in the natural trend.

There were other factors at play as well that had huge impact of the Prairie wheat crop. Environment and disease have an impact on the crop, but don’t fit as well with the traditional story and thus have substantively been ignored. Moreover, trying to extnd the wartime hypothesis as leading to a drive to bring less advantageous areas (such as parts Palliser’s Triangle) under cultivation and sloppy practise due to depleted workforce similarly don’t hold up under scrutiny. McInnis identifies the spread of rust, hailstorms and major July frosts as leading to a protracted period of low yields in the west. Additionally, trade factors such as the removal of the US tariff on livestock imports led to greater increase in production than war time demand. The demand rose before the war, continued through, and only fell when the tariffs were coincidentally reimposed shortly after, but unrelated to wartime issues.

The ignorance of the place of Eastern agriculture in the traditional story is another missing facet. As McInnis asserts, well over 50% of agricultural product during this period. In central Canada, agriculture is reliant primarily on the production of pork and cheese. Cheese in particular was a huge export product, 90% of which was being shipped to Britain. Butter never had this dominance in trade, nor did beef. Beef exports rose by 25% between 1912–14 to the United States, largely because of tariff reductions. The US produced 5-6X as much pork for export and changes in their production had greater impact. However, livestock production in Eastern Canada experienced no tremendous growth during wartime, despite soaring prices, raising questions as to why Ontario farmers were not more responsive to economic demand.

As a conclusion, McInnis leaves us with a variety of questions for further pondering. However, he very solidly demonstrates that questioning simple economic stories is both necessary, possible and can help us to better appreciate the truer national story of the Canadian economy.

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About a year ago I adopted the French Republican Calendar for my personal journalling. Why? Really for no other reason than to be different. It offered me the opportunity to learn the Republican Calendar through practise (a word-a-day sort of arrangement). The upheaval of the switch to a new system in France in 1795, caused confusion, was not widely adopted and in the end was discontinued by Napoleon during the Empire. This was not before such references such as the Coup of 18 Brumaire and lobster Thermidor forever embedded the poeticisme of the calendaring system in our historical memory.

The calendar is divided in to 12 months of 30 days, with three weeks of 10 days each. The ‘extra’ days of the solar year were celebrated as special festival days (virtue, talent, convictions,labour, honours and the Revolution) — intended to solidly cement the triumph of the Revolution into the French psyche. Months are topically named after environmental characteristics of the months themselves and each day of the calendar is associated with a plant, mineral, tool, or animal. During the winter months, we have the months of snow, rain and wind. On a daily basis, today we celebrate Bette (Chard). When one considers the system it’s actually rather cool, if not practical. It emphasizes the individual or human’s position with in a larger natural world. Needless to say it is a humanist device and was considered integral to the secularization of the Republic. But after using it for nearly a full cycle now I quite like the way in which I am reminded of a single natural bounty, which one cannot help but reflect upon that day. It’s a wonderful reminder of one’s place as well as the fruits of the environment. It might be considered the ‘green calendar’.

If you are interested in more info about the calendar, the wikipedia entry is a great start, and has a number of additional references. Additionally, and I have really appreciated this, there is a Republican Calendar widget for the OSX dashboard available which reminds you of the date and its associated element.

On a personal note, a few days ago, the cycle changed and we entered the season of Germinal. I was personally struck by the change and felt quite positive — all the more Spring-like, but somehow more than the term spring brought to my mind. Even with the news reminders, and media attention to the advent of the Spring season, the turn to Germinal somehow was more profoundly striking. Germinal set me off picturing new growth, germination, the colour green and of re-awakening following the whiteness and bleakness of the the past season. In the Republican Calendar the past month was Ventôse and I honestly cannot remember a month when this seemed all the more appropriately descriptive. The winds howled this winter and this republican association with characteristics seemed both close and . With the change in cycle we are reminded that even without human intervention, the season do change and that we are part of an infinitely larger system. One nowe moving into a rich, vitalizing rebirth.

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My apologies if this sounded like I was challenging Jared Diamond to a wordoff ;-)   <a href=“http://idlebritishcolumbian.blogspot.com/ target=“_blank”>Michele just pointed me to wonderfully candid article

explaining why office workers should appreciate their surroundings and pity the poor fools that consider the coffee shop their workplace. While I number amongst those blighted souls and blogged last year on why I like the mobile life, Sathnam Sanghera’s ode to office bliss, raises some notable and worthy points.
I was particularly struck by Sanghera’s anecdotal reference to people working at home starting to form groups so they can work at home together. Man is indeed a social animal. I like working in a public space, even if I am not interacting directly with other people. I like having them around. By that I don’t mean to objectify others by any means, as having people in your immediate proximity can often run counter to productivity. But, everyone has their own levels of tolerance, and I sense that Sanghera is accepting this broad stratum of individual workspace demands. He highlights a study by Benjamin Markham¹ that underlines the fact that workplaces end up being counterproductive by being too quiet. The silence itself becomes a distraction.
This Regus Business Lounge of which he speaks conjures up images of a modernized London men’s club catering to the mobile worker. Probably similarly intentioned as co-operative workspaces, such as the ones I spoke of in the other post, but with more of a traveler’s business lounge feeling. This would certainly speak to why he found it far too quiet to embrace productivity. I am still struggling to identify this milieu factor. The transiency of the Regus Lounge suggests that there is little or no chance of happenstantial interchange…nor is it desired. As a place becomes habitually more familiar, the chance of actually developing a nodding acquaintance certainly can threaten the anonymity of the mobile workplace. It’s a fine line.
Sanghera’s article is a fun one. Well written and I find myself reminded of the fact that I am trying to create my own specialized office workspace on the road. It’s not that it’s better than the office, but I suspect that like Sanghera, I too have social needs and discipline is part of the mix that gets me out of bed in the morning…if I could just stay there and accomplish my workaday routines, the scary reality is that I just might.

BTW, true to form, I am sitting in the Starbuck’s cafe in the centre of the larger Indigo bookstore as a I write this and have just finished writing 1000 words towards my dissertation on a Saturday²

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1. Sorry, but I can’t find the source for his reference
2. By the way, the photo up top comes from a USA today article that explores the third space and the rarpidly growing mobile workforce.

The Wilson Centre in Canadian History officially launched an awesome new learning tool destined for the classrooms of local schools last night. The People and the the Bay is an historical environmental documentary created by Nancy Bouchier, Ken Cruikshank and the wizards from Pixel Dust Studios This stunning production brings a vivacity, zest, and probing depth to explore the unique relationship between the Hamilton harbour and the lives of people in the area and the city itself. The occasion was celebrated at the Canada Marine Discovery Centre, a uniquely appropriate site for presenting this production. The centre sits on the harbour and is an interpretative museum dedicated to Canada’s rich aquatic heritage.

Nancy Bouchier, one of the co-authors/presenters of the programme suggests that when most of us think of Hamilton we picture, ” a successful but grimy, industrial city.” The backdrop to this is steel mills, steamers, traffic and smokestacks. But, as Ken Cruikshank, our other guide asserts, it’s much more than this and Hamilton is a city rediscovering its rich heritage by reconnecting to the harbour. Over the next 45 minutes Ken and Nancy bring to life the richness of past connection to Burlington Bay and leave us with a hopeful appreciation for the continued revitalization of the body of water that has been so central to the growth of the area. The natural beauty of the harbour area is highlighted — an aspect of the Hamilton harbour area that is far too easy to miss. You have to walk the trails, sail in the harbour and maybe produce a documentary production, to truly find this beauty. When you immerse yourself in the area you can find it, but it does take effort. It may be easier to do this today, as the DVD conveys, but it is still all too often hidden behind a veil of smog, or camouflaged by industry that scares one away from wanting to get too close. Our commentators do get close to the nature of the harbour. They walk the trails, wander the parks and cemeteries, and in Bouchier’s case canoe the bay to bring a new appreciation to viewers.

Pixel Dust Studios and director Zach Melnick have woven their magic to deliver this amazing historical-environmental documentary. I wax gushingly, but honestly admit that this programme is crafted with a special touch. The cinematography is superbly shot, composed and rendered with original music. They combine historical re-enactments, with stock and historical footage to create an engaging and pertinent production that is testament to their ability not only as filmmakers, but as craftspeople who work with historical material with tremendous sensitivity. The DVD is presented in both SD and HD formats as well, giving the viewer an added visual treat.

It will be valuable to follow the classroom adoption and use of this DVD. As these are distributed to local history teachers for use in their classrooms, the true benefits and impact of the product will be recognized. It has been authored with this use in mind. The duration of the programme is geared towards being able to show within a single class period. It is nicely segmented into short chapters and these can be used to support specific events and study foci. Additionally, and I appreciate this one, one of the navigation options is spatial. The particular chapters have been mapped to their locations around the harbour. All we are missing is a separate chronological timeline view. The wealth of options hopefully will allow varied uses for the product and for convenient enhancement of existing curricula. Will the addition lead to the discussion that the producers clearly hope to engender? I hope and believe it will, and look forward to discovering how it does work. One thing is of little doubt, this product raises the bar for tools to aid in teaching Canadian history in the classroom. I fervently hope that this is only the first of such productions that can bring a compelling and media-competitive edge to teachers who have to battle the pervasiveness of block buster historical epics that lead students to conclude that Canadian history is boring.

Last year I had the privilege to assist Dr. Viv Nelles, the LR Wilson Chair, and person responsible for initiating this project, when he presented the Introduction to Canadian History course. He re-imagined the presentation of what is a staple course for history departments in Canada and created a fresh and dynamic offering for his students. His innovative approach combined pertinent themes with an appreciation for the broader context of the interaction between man and nature. Judging from my interaction with the students, engaged them in a course many expect to be a yawn fest. This went so far as one student confiding to me that she had actually suffered from nightmares following his eerie telling of tales of the loup-garou and its role in Québecois society. You know you are reaching students when… This new teaching tool for high school history teachers smacks of this dedication to innovation and revitalization of the teaching of our history.

I was planning to blog after attending the DVD launch last night. I ruminated over words and messages and continued to do so as I drove to the office this morning. And that’s when it hit me. As I drove along the 403 I passed many of the points highlighted in the production. We can all too easily miss the context of our everyday life. Tasks and places are rooted in our shared existence with others and with the past. The historical context deepens out understanding, our appreciation and hopefully our sensitivity to place. We can be sensitive to their care, sympathy, stewardship and struggles with problems that we face today and continue in their efforts. Through productions like ‘The People and the Bay,’ we are made aware that these processes that are longer than our lifetimes and often memories, but that awareness leads to new appreciation not just of superficial beauty, but can inspire the the strength and dedication to build on the efforts of our ancestors.

Note: The most beautiful sequence for me is the 6 spans crossing the Dejardins canal captured in the image above, and presented at the beginning of chapter 9. The slow progression through the ancient waterway and the perfect lighting conditions really resonated with me.

Update: The Hamilton Spectator has great coverage of the launch.

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Bill Turkel posted another great thought piece today on the Importance of Infrastructure. This post is, as his others always are, very erudite, well phrased and provoke one to think. In this case, his framing question seems to be whether one can really environmentally engineer innovation. His post suggests that letting the right people play in the right sandbox, with the right toys can yield astonishing results. He addresses the nature of how we construct personal space in order to bolster productivity, creativity and all those good things.

Ironically, I just finished browsing past an RSS feeds suggesting the close connection between clutter and depression. Turkel’s article is a raises the question of surroundings to a higher level though. He invokes Christopher Alexander, the guru of environmental design reasoning, and concludes that “the right infrastructure attracts the right people and then something really cool happens. But it isn’t possible to predict in more detail than that.” Thus, the Alexander principle of taking patterns and iteratively exploding patterns into smaller patterns, stops at some level of granularity. The challenge that he identifies is that creation of theses spaces often demands some prediction of the outcome to capture the appropriate resources.

One thing that struck me about this discussion was that my physical environment is very heavily dependent upon and increasingly augmented today by a virtual environment. Moreover, many of the folk trying to use patterns to create the best work environment have to be aware of these ties to the virtual worlds when creating the physical sandbox. Moreover, there is an intriguing connection between how one translates the ideal real world environment into a compelling and useful online existence. There’s a necessary translation between the physical and the virtual, but there is a clear connection, that if we can better appreciate, might also catalyze results.

The second arise from the fact that I am one of those that Turkel identifies as finding the coffee shop the most appropriate environment for work. I blogged on this earlier and attempted to get to this concept of the technologically augmented workspace in a public place. When I started using coffee shops to work in I was still drawn back to the home office for things like net access and other wired media. Increasingly what I can do in a public space has become more pervasive. This however has changed the nature of the cafe environment itself. Inadvertently it was a refuge from the net — now it is invaded by the net and it takes discipline to tear oneself away. Everything is fluid and workspaces have to be too.

I recall when we were working with a designer on our space for Ardesic, we were attempting to create an adaptable and accidental space that people were able to turn into one that suited their needs and the needs of the company. We tried to provide versatile function with whiteboards on odd surfaces and whiteboards on wheels and walls that moved and desk areas based on a metaphorical hug. None of this really worked. I test drove furniture at Herman Miller’s luscious showroom in Toronto and came away convinced that much of this stuff would work, but when it was translated into another space and tried to fulfill others demand, there was a mixed bag of success and absolute failure. Ultimately, although we recognize the need for personal and personalized space, its tough to harmonize this with semi-public space.

I guess I am starting to stray from Bill’s point about infrastructure before innovation, but decided that a tangent about the translation between the physical and the virtual environment is worth consider, given that project infrastructures are increasingly trying to blend the physical with the virtual to reach their objectives.

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There is a great discussion at Bricoleurbanism on the absence of people-scaled spaces in Toronto’s urban streetscape. The discussion takes as a starting point construction hoarding on two sides of the street near Bloor that inadvertently created a humane street scale not unlike that found elsewhere in the world. This contrast in city scale is evident even between Toronto and Montreal. The urban core in Montreal, despite the presence of modern high-rises, and not entirely due to semi-random occurrence of buildings from the past 300 years, has this more human scale. Why? Proportions. The article at Bricoleurbanism offers a brief look at examples in Toronto that have achieved this scale and ends with a call for attention to the dehumanizing scale of our modern city. The infrastructure that allows machines ready access to and from the core also dehumanizes the space and creates the need to actually move to and from the core. When spaces are achieved they are like pearls in the streetscape and there clearly is the intention at times to create these spaces. I include some photos from New Dundee square, the sculpture park between King and Adelaide and the pleasant walk near the Dominion marketplace on Front Street.

This need for humanizing our urban spaces isn’t a new message, but it certainly does reinforce one of the causes behind the familiar scene of streams of workers fleeing the inner city in Toronto on the Go Train every evening rather than lingering in a concrete jungle.

By the way, there is also a companion set of photos from the new Michael Lee-Chin crystal at the ROM, so that those of us unable to attend the public unveiling recently can vicariously appreciate the new space.

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Kudos to Nokia for adding the smarts to their cell phones to let a user know to unplug the charger from the wall socket. Apparently this simple operation (presuming people actually do unplug the phones — as opposed to leaving them plugged in and charging all night) will allow saving “enough electricity to power 85,000 homes a year”. From their press release I gather that 1/3 of the energy consumed by cell phones and chargers is by leaving the charger plugged into a live socket after the phone has been unplugged. A simple code addition to add the warning to the phone promises significant energy savings. The big question is, what about all those other non-operational appliances running in the home and still plugged into a live socket? Maybe there is promise in having smarter appliances start to help their owners to learn how to conserve energy. You know? I might even be able to start unplugging my charger without having my phone telling me to do so.

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On the flight down(?) to Montréal the other day, it was a sharp and clear early morning so I kept the camera with me in the cabin in hope of catching a few neat snaps from above. There were about 10–15 of the 300 or so I shot that were worth actually keeping. Those of you that know me of course realize that I will keep them all as I am a pack rat, both digital and materially. However, of the ones that were worth keeping, a few of the marginal ones were of something that both caught my eye and on processing scared me. Halfway through the journey I was keeping my eyes out the window and there was this orangey-brown ribbon on the landscape. It caught my eye and on further examination it was not ‘on’ the landscape, but was instead floating above. It was a stream of exhaust from a source that eventually hove into view. I say eventually as the plume was about 10–12 km right across Prince Edward County. I had no idea what was there or might have been creating the massive amount of pollution.

As it was so clear, the source is actually very obvious and when I turned to Google Maps I was quickly able to identify the source as the Essroc Cement Plant near Picton, Ontario. A little more investigation turned up a report by the Clean Air Alliance that indicates that this plant is the second largest creator of air-borne Nitrogen Oxides and the ninth-largest overall emitter of air pollutants and respiratory toxins. How appropriate to discover such a place, with such a visible presence from the air, on or about the Tory announcement of their ‘new’ environmental policy. Will I see a noticeable reduction in this plants output? I certainly doubt it, but would love to be proven wrong.
I have uploaded a set of higher-res photos to a flickr set ‘Ribbon of Death’.
In case you are tuning in the geo-referenced portion of this blog entry, I have pinpointed it at the location of these photos, and not geo-referenced to where I am writing this as I normally do.

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Its just not my month/week/day for utilities. First it was the night of water and now in the midst of our best blizzard yet this year I seem to have lost half an electrical circuit in my house. If it was a full circuit and involved a fuse…that’d be resolvable by a mere layman such as myself, but it seems to defy logic. I have four electrical circuits for my lights and receptacles. I have mixed and matched fuses and figured out where all the circuits seem to be, but it seems that half a circuit is out. Unfortunately it is my office and full washroom (yes, the one that supplied the carwash that was my carport — and yes, I cannot rule out some connection) so that took out my network and the media centre remains offline now. I ran electrical into one node so I could get the hub and router back online, but the rest is off until I get some more light.

I was oh so logical with the fuses and the like, but I just can;t figure it. Am also used more used to the magnetic breakers from Guelph. Resetting breakers seemed much more simple, but these fuses…they all are functional and yet I can’t seem to get the bloody circuit to reset. Oh well…until the morning…the cold wind is howling.

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Now talking about serious luck ;-) From Michele comes this absolutely amazing story, one which I am sure is just making its way to all the major news outlets, but so visually stunning. Apparently a rabbit farmer in Germany has managed to breed a super sized German Gray rabbit. He has further convinced the North Koreans that this is the staple livestock to ‘meat’ their dietary needs. I attach pictures as this has to be seen to be believed. The BBC has picked it up in video as well the Times. The rabbits weigh in at about 7kg and are more than three times the size of the average rabbit offering surprisingly nutritious and fat-reduced meat. Amazing.

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