Project Description

Shieldsville- an unincorporated community west of Fairbault. Has a population of a little over 1,000 people. Above average median income, almost entirely white, lower number of immigrants than the surrounding census tracts. Large houses, dirt roads, boats, a single gas station, and an old Catholic Church from the mid 1800s. At no time in its history has it existed as more than a few scattered buildings. It exists now as a number of mid 1970s Mcmansions and farms without a central nucleus.

The goal of this deep mapping project is to examine the relationship between the human and environmental geography in the Shieldsville Quadrangle focusing primarily on the waterways. These serve as an analytic focal point because of its location within Minnesota and the cultural baggage within the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It will look to the interplay between the environment, the political, and the personal accounts of this space to see how these kinds of experience illuminate to produce the kinds of attachments to the Minnesotan waterways. The layers of meaning will grow as it moves through the project.

Methods

Approaching this project was an interesting challenge because it lacked many of the normal “ins” to this kind of project. My early research ended up with a number of ultimately interesting dead ends but nothing that would make sense to base a project around. After working for some time on finding an archival hook I decided to visit the sight and see what struck me. While I did not come upon a ghost town or forgotten war memorial, I was stuck by how the space was so structured by the waterways within the Quadrangle. I was also working on several texts in environmental anthropology about the interaction between environment and culture. Taking the role of the deep map as displaying a broader range of ideas and narratives to understand the deeper story and essence of a place, I saw this as an opportunity to get the the essence of this place.

In order to depict that interplay I conducted my analysis into three major sections: the environmental, political, and personal. The goal of those three sections is to give a sense of the whole picture of the place. In creating these I decided to use a number of maps, utilizing publicly available data in order to represent the salient features of the landscape. In terms of technical details, I stayed generally within the standard usage of the software.