A bird’s eye view
As an infrequent flyer (the double digit end of the Air Miles club list), I still take a childlike pleasure from the low altitude passages over familiar territory. Seeing my house from the air is just cool enough to make the rest of the process worthwhile. But, there are easier ways to achieve that “look below” feeling; aerial photos.
Some years ago, the Island government, through its website, made a series of photos available to the rest of us. Going back to before fast cars and electric lights, I was able to see my father’s farm as he never saw it; from overhead. Later series allow me to spot where I’ve lived, gone to school, never been. All with the greenest of footprints.
I’ve wondered why other areas haven’t followed the lead. Probably a cost is attached, and the whole idea isn’t particulary high on the list of priorities. When the local newspaper presented a recent project from the Laval University geomatics department this weekend, my passion for time travel was back.
These aren’t new photos. We’re back in 1948, when temporary housing was still in place on the Plains, and my neighbourhood was (as I’d heard years ago) simply fields. The small river that was piped away is visible, and the lack of power lines, parking lots and overpass spirals is a wonderful retrospective view. My exploration has just begun.
The interest of the general public for the various satellite photo sites such as Google show that this is one place where the time to program a site is a good investment. We can’t really get into a time machine and go back, but just seeing how much a particular area has evolved is better than watching TV. So, the challenge is out to various levels of government; give us our aerial archives.
