UPEI GeoREACH Lab

08/19/2026

The brains behind the UPEI GeoREACH Lab! Meet the 2026 summer undergraduate student research assistants.

05/30/2026

OK it’s the moment that at least 3 of you have been waiting for. The final instalment of Unboxing (Summerside) history! Part 4 is the finalé of the Summerside Fire Insurance Maps, where Fabian tells us how he used these maps for a DH historical-GIS project on the changing waterfront and transportation infrastructure of Prince Edward Island’s second city, Summerside!

See the first three videos and plenty more maps at the UPEI GeoREACH Lab (for Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History) and reach out if you have questions or maps you'd like featured. Thanks to Fabian and Han for your help!
www/upei.ca/GeoLab

05/29/2026

We just finished folding the Atlantic Canada Studies programs in the UPEI GeoREACH Lab, and we are looking forward to welcoming a few hundred scholars to campus starting on:
- Sunday (with the Environmental History summer school - CHESS, keynote Dr. Dagomar Degroot, Sunday 5:30pm MSC 110)
- Monday (the Canadian Historical Association, keynote "Dr. Ed" MacDonald Tuesday evening)
- Wednesday (a monster overlap day with 50+ parallel sessions)
- Thursday (with field trips and the ACS Plenary Panel on Rosemary Ommer's legacy)
- Friday (lots of ACS sessions and another plenary "lunch and learn" on Medicare History with Dr. Gregory Marchildon), and
- Saturday (with a closing downtown Charlottetown walking tour with Dr Ed).
For more info and the full program see www.upei.ca/ACSC

Oh and somewhere in there I have to give two papers and host a couple of workshops... It's going to be a week!

We should have taken a more picturesque, PEI-esque action shot for our visitors, but it's been freezing and rainy outside. Let's hope spring arrives by Sunday...
https://www.upei.ca/communications/news/2026/05/upei-hosts-over-600-historians-three-overlapping-conferences-june-1-5

05/22/2026

We are looking forward to hosting hundreds of Canadian historians and other scholars of the Atlantic region from 31 May to 6 June. It has been a pleasure to engage with so many excellent paper proposals from colleagues across the region. There are dozens of sessions and other special events planned for the week. We start with a 1-day version of the CHESS: Canadian History & Environment Summer School on 31 May.

Join us at UPEI on Sunday the 31st at 5:30pm for the CHESS keynote by environmental historian Dagomar Degroot!

Reflections on Resilience: 20,000 Years of Climate History
Speaker: Dr. Dagomar Degroot
Date: Sunday 31 May
Time: 17:30-18:45
Location: University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown Campus, MSC 110 (McMillan Hall)
550 University Ave, Charlottetown, PE

All are welcome to attend this Plenary Address of the Canadian History & Environment Summer School (CHESS), hosted by the UPEI Climate School, the UPEI GeoREACH Lab, and NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment.

Dagomar Degroot is a leading climate historian from Georgetown University. He has published several​ high-impact and award-winning books on climate history and hosts the Climate Chronicles podcast. He was most recently the Baruch S. Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation at NASA and the Library of Congress.

31 May 2026 - Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island - Dr. Dagomar Degroot is a leading climate historian from Georgetown University. He has published several high-impact, award-winning books on climate history and hosts the The Climate Chronicles podcast.

05/21/2026

Part 3 of our Unboxing (Summerside) History series, where we explore maps Prince Edward Island (PEI). This video uses Fire Insurance Plans to take a look at PEI's second city, Summerside, and the wealth that built many of its core structures.

Watch for Part 4, the final clip, showing how the city's infrastructure switched from public transit to personal automobiles. For more videos and maps see the UPEI GeoREACH Lab website and reach out if you have questions or maps you'd like featured. Link in bio. Thanks to Han for the camera work!

05/15/2026

Welcome to Part 2 of our Unboxing (Summerside) History series, where we explore some new (to most) mid-century maps Prince Edward Island (PEI). This video will reveal and walk through some Fire Insurance Plans of PEI's second city, Summerside. By the end you'll see a city's infrastructure convert from public transit to personal automobiles. See more videos and maps at the UPEI GeoREACH Lab (for Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History) and reach out if you have questions or maps you'd like featured. Link in bio. Thanks to for the camera work!

05/13/2026

Map nerd alert! Welcome to Part 1 of my lab's Unboxing History series, where we explore some new (to most) mid-century maps Prince Edward Island (PEI). This week, Summerside! This video will reveal and walk through some Fire Insurance Plans of PEI's second city, Summerside. By the end you'll see a city's infrastructure convert from public transit to personal automobiles. See more videos and maps at the UPEI GeoREACH Lab (for Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History) and reach out if you have questions or maps you'd like featured. Link in bio. Thanks for the camera work

04/09/2026

Please share with undergrads and others seeking a funded research opportunity. We are recruiting excellent students for a Funded Masters of Arts (Island Studies) position studying "Island Metabolisms and the Genesis of the Canadian Agri‑Food System."
This position offers up to two years of funding ($20,000 per year) for a highly motivated graduate student in the UPEI Master of Arts in Island Studies (thesis stream) to join the GeoREACH Lab and undertake original, research-intensive work on islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and lower St. Lawrence River regions. Apply by 1 July, 2026 for September start. Full details at:
https://www.upei.ca/programs/island-studies/scholarships

04/07/2026

Thanks to the Acadiensis blog for sharing this reflection about an exciting new resource that my lab recently added to GeoPEI: the Prince Edward Island Historical Map Viewer. "Motor Lodges, Mourners, and Upward Mobility: An Introduction to the Paul Sharpe Aerial Photograph Collection, 1947-1952."

And thanks to the Sharpe family for sharing this collection with the Island! My entire Digital Humanities class has been working with the new images this semester, but this reflection was written by Fabian Wegner, Abigail Fenton, and me to help launch this collection of oblique aerial photos for the public.

This is another new layer that adds a unique resource for historians studying Atlantic Canada's society and environment in the mid-twentieth century. The layer, titled 1950 PFS for the photos taken by Paul's Flying Service circa-1950, captured a province at the beginning of the so-called "Great Acceleration" period in modern environmental history.

In some ways the Island hasn't changed, but in many other ways these sites are radically different today. Trains at full steam (see Summerside) and even some ships at full sail (Murray Harbour) are now long gone. So are the fox farms (Emerald, Victoria, Keppoch/Stratford). Airports grew (Charlottetown YYG) and roads and parking lots paved almost everywhere (especially Capital Drive and Royalty Crossing areas in Charlottetown). Tourism infrastructure shifted (Winsloe, Marshfield, Cavendish, Stanhope). And suburban growth exploded (eg. Sherwood, Cornwall).

Enjoy the new layer on GeoPEI, and take in the Island from 30,000 feet, or just above the tree line!

Joshua MacFadyen, Abigail Fenton, and Fabian Wegner Introduction The UPEI lab for Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History (the GeoREACH Lab) recently added a new layer of aerial photograph…

03/18/2026

Another "Lunch in the Lab," this time with Gwen Vessey, of the Prince Edward Island AgriWatershed Partnership. Gwen is a retired Soil Conservation Specialist and I was able to share that it was through visiting her at the PEI Department of Agriculture (waaay back during my PhD) I was inspired to use historical GIS to study Atlantic Canadian land use changes and the larger question of sustainable food systems. We're both still using GIS to map social and ecological vulnerabilities in our current systems.

Always fun to reconnect with someone who has inspired you, and even more when you learn what amazing work she is doing for the Island's agriculture and environment, in her retirement.
https://peiawp.com/

And there's the lab. A little messy. A little mappy!