The Trebek Initiative has awarded $67,494 to Kirsten Kennedy to produce LIDAR imaging and maps of cultural sites on Georgian Bay. It’s a boost for the proposed Georgian Bay UNESCO Geopark with which the University of Toronto geography professor is associated, and which I’ve mentioned in a previous post. The Trebek Initiative, named for the late game show host Alex Trebek and supported by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and National Geographic Society, says it funds “storytellers, educators, conservationists and researchers whose projects aim to preserve Canadian and Indigenous land, wildlife, water, culture and history. The types of projects we champion are: exploration of unique ecozones in Canada, scientific research on Canadian wildlife, wilderness or water, a photography exposition on unique Canadian geographies and communities, or new tools to create a better understanding of our environment.”
According to the Trebek Initiative, “Embracing the principle of ‘two-eyed seeing’ to reconcile the Indigenous perspective and history with state-of-the art mapping technologies, Kirsten will map geo-cultural sites identified by local Indigenous and archeological partners with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology. Work completed to date shows that LiDAR imagery reveals hitherto unseen details of a site’s physical setting in a highly visual and accessible format. The results will inform planning of the UNESCO Geopark and associated educational and conservation activities. As a final educational product, LiDAR images and maps will be curated into a large format physical and digital atlas of ‘geo-cultural’ sites around Georgian Bay.”
Wild Great Lakes 