When I think of Edmonton, I don't necessarily think of nature. I know that we have lots of trees and parks and everything, but they're only green for a few months, so I usually think of Edmonton as just white with snow. While reading the Davis text I thought about how cool Edmonton would be if it was uninhabited by people after a crazy apocalypse. The picture above makes me think of how Jasper Ave might look after a bit of time. But I also wondered what it would be like if people had never touched the landscape. It would be interesting to see an overlay map of Edmonton like on the Hypercities website we looked at in class. Because one thing we've learned in this class is that Edmonton has a long history, as long as any other place on earth, except most of that history doesn't involve people as much as Rome did thousands of years ago. Therefore the history of Edmonton features nature more prominently than anything else and it would be really awesome to see a representation of that.
Similar to you (it seems), I have always enjoyed post-apocalyptic media—from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later—the idea of a world void of human interference has always excited me. Of course, I realize these specific examples make it seem like I’m craving some sort of zombie or alien reckoning, but that’s not the case—your picture simply reminded me of I Am Legend or The Omega Man. The idea of using a Hypercities map to view the natural history of Edmonton is an interesting one, though arguably hypothetic. Consequently, without human beings there wouldn’t be mapping, which certainly limits our access to the history of the natural world. This is why; moreover, we have the opportunity to view the ancient city of Rome and not the recent city of Edmonton. Very cool picture by the way.
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