Today's class is not your typical class. This is one where students in
the remote community of Resolute will be travelling virtually to learn
about a part of Canadian history and indeed a part of the world's history.
Through Direct PC satellite communications, the local school is able to
participate in this virtual field trip over the Internet, where a team of
experts including an anthropologist, a zoologist and a historian
has travelled to Head-Smashed-In Bison Jump in the Porcupine Hills of
Southern Alberta. Utilizing an MSAT communicator satellite phone, the
cultural experts along with an Internet support team has created a website,
compleat with movies, pictures, sound and Quicktime panoramas as they
explore this world heritage site. The children have been following the
website for the past week and will join, along with school
children across Canada and children around the world to participate
in a remote class being conducted by the experts over the global
MBONE (multicast backbone, an Internet technology facilitating the
distribution of realtime multimedia information to computer desktops).
They may also have the opportunity to have their questions
that they had sent by email, answered.
Head-Smashed-In Bison Jump, located 19km west of Fort Macleod in southern Alberta, is the oldest, largest and best preserved bison jump in North America. This site was first used at least 5700 years ago and possibly as early as 8000 BC. Head-Smashed-In represents a unique and unsurpassed communal way of hunting used for thousands of years by native peoples of the Great Plains.
Most of these students and indeed, the students across Canada may not have the opportunity to actually visit Head-Smashed-In Bison Jump, which is over 3000 km south from Resolute. However, through, our latest communications medium, the Internet, which will play an integral and influential role as we move towards the dawn of the Information Age, they are able to experience visually and to learn about this important and significant world cultural site. Remote communications technology such as MSAT, MRSAT, DirectPC, etc. will extend the reach of the current Internet infrastructure.
Continuing in this unique series of virtual field trips which allowed the school children from Resolute, last week, to learn and explore the historic area of Quebec City - an example of an old colonial fortified town and French Canadian culture, next week's adventure will be to the Kluane National Park. They will join a team of adventurer's who will be travelling through this wilderness dominated by some of the world's largest icefields outside of the polar regions, most of Canada's highest mountains, wide valleys, mountain lakes, alpine meadows and tundra.
The students in Resolute along with their fellow students across Canada and in fact all Canadians have the opportunity to experience and learn about Canada and each other in this unique event demonstrating how the Internet and the emerging communications infrastructures can indeed help to collapse this vast nation of ours.
The sites chosen for these virtual trips and adventures are significant in that they represent a part of not only Canadian heritage, but of World Heritage. There are 12 natural and cultural sites that have been designated as World Heritage sites in Canada, yet few Canadians know very much about them or their significance. Canada has played an integral role in the Convention concerning the Preservation of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage which was adopted in 1972. The World Heritage Committee under the auspices of UNESCO oversees the implementation of this Convention. Presently, there are over 469 natural and cultural sites around the world. Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the adoption of this Convention.
"These monuments and sites constitute, together with many others, a common heritage, to be treasured as unique testimonies to an enduring past. Their disappearance would be an irreparable loss for each and every one of us. And yet, most are threatened, particularly in present times. The preservation of this common heritage concerns us all."
Communications has played an integral role in the exploration, development and formation of this expansive land. From the canoes used by the voyageurs in search of a passage to the west, to the laying of our national railway, to the invention of the telephone, to the completion of coast to coast microwave links, to the building of the Trans-Canada highway, to the launching of domestic communications satellites, and finally to the latest and potentially greatest, a "superinformation highway". All have helped to diminish the physical distances between Canadians.
The proposal is to create a national event demonstrating the communications infrastructures and infostructures that have been and are being created in Canada to allow Candians to communicate and learn about Canada and each other in the emerging "global village".
By visting our past and understanding a part of our heritage through our World Heritage Sites, perhaps we can build a stronger future!
Over a span of about 6-8 months, we are proposing to send teams of Internet and communications specialists and various cultural and scientific experts to the 12 World Heritage sites in Canada to create a high quality educational web site to celebrate the 25th anniversary of World Heritage emphasizing our Canadian Heritage. Using the latest infrastructures such as DirectPC, MSAT and the National Test Network, we hope to be able to create a unique event for Canadians and the world to participate, in particular, school children. They indeed are our future!
L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Park (C/1978)
This site has the first historic traces of a European presence in the Americas - in a Viking settlement from the 11th century, with the remains of wooden and earth houses similar to those found in Norway.
Nahanni National Park (N/1978)
Located along the Nahanni River, one of the most spectacular wild rivers in North America, this park contains deep canyons, huge waterfalls, as well as a unique limestone cave system. The park is also home to animals of the northern boreal forest, such as mountain goat, Dall sheep, wolf, grizzly and caribou.
Dinosaur Provincial Park (N/1979)
In addition to its very beautiful landscapes the park, located in the Province of Alberta, contains some of the most important fossil discoveries ever made from the "Age of Reptiles", in particular, some 60 species, representative of seven families of dinosaurs, dating back some 75 million years.
Anthony Island (C/1981)
With its houses and its 32 totem and mortuary poles, the village of Ninstints, on Anthony Island, which was abandoned towards the end of the 19th century, offers a unique view of the activity of the autochtonous Indian hunters and fishermen who once lived on the North Pacific coast.
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Complex (C/1981)
In southwest Alberta, the remains of marked trails, remains of an autochton camp and a tumulus where vast quantities of bison skeletons can be found, bear witness to a custom practised by the autochtons of the North American plains for nearly 6,000 years. Thanks to their excellent understanding of topography and of bison behaviour, they killed the buffalo by chasing them up to a precipice, and subsequently carve up the carcasses in the camp below.
Wood Buffalo National Park (N/1983)
Located in the plains in the north-central region of Canada, this park houses the largest population of wild bison in America and is the natural nesting place of the whooping crane. The largest inland delta in the world, the one of the rivers Peace and Athabasca, is one of the natural attractions of the park.
Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks (N/1984/1990)
The contiguous National parks of Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho, as well as the Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and Hamber Provincial Parks, studded with mountain peaks, glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons and limestone caves, form a striking mountain landscape. The Burgess Shale fossil site, well-known for its fossil remains of soft- bodied marine animals, can also be found there.
Historic Area of Quebec (C/1985)
Founded by the French explorer Champlain in the early 17th century, the former capital of Nouvelle-France came under English rule from the middle of the 18th century until the middle of the 19th century. Its upper town, built on the cliff, has remained the religious and administrative centre with its churches, convents and other monuments such as the Citadel, the Parliament and Chateau Frontenac. Together with the lower town and its ancient quarters it forms un urban ensemble which is one of the best examples of a fortified colonial town.
Gros Morne National Park (N/1987)
On the west coast of Newfoundland, the park provides a panorama of the geological evolution of an ocean basin and a continental plain, with its fjords, glacial valleys, waterfalls, steep cliffs, a high alpine plateau and many lakes.
Lunenburg Old Town (C/1995)
Lunenburg provides the best example of a British colonial city in North America. Established in 1753, it has kept intact its original layout and its overall appearance, based on a rectangular grid pattern drawn up in the home country. The inhabitants managed to safeguard the city's identity while it was growing by preserving the wooden architecture of its houses, some of which date from the 18th century, most from the 19th.
Tatshenshini-Alsek/Kluane National Park/Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Reserve and Glacier Bay National Park (N/1979/1992/1994)
These parks comprise an impressive complex of glaciers and high peaks on either side of the frontier between Canada and the United States of America (Alaska). These spectacular natural landscapes are home to many grizzlys, caribou and Dall sheep.
Waterton Glacier International Peace Park (N/1995)
These two National Parks were designated by law the world's first International Peace Park in 1932. Located on the Canada/US border and offering outstanding scenery, the parks are exceptionnally rich in plant and mammal species as well as in alpine and glacial features.