Further research at the City Archive and Public Works helped us to piece together enough information to understand Mill Creek’s wandering route. The changes to Mill Creek, the community memory of its physical location and its impact on the community of Galt (now Cambridge) have changed much since initial settlement. This is not atypical of communities whose origins are tied closely to a river or some other water source. These rivers and creeks adapt to changes in community interest and ultimately, their specific economies. As the community lived with the creek, they learned to manipulate it and use it in many constructed ways, moving from agricultural uses to industrial ones. When the railway brought new opportunities for shipping and receiving in this area, the creek was compromised to accommodate the tracks. When industry shifted from mills to other kinds of land development, the transportation focus shifted from trains to cars and the creek became a hindrance. The economics of the town changed, the creek was sent underground, its visual presence was lost.
Tools
Conveying the timeline
The timeline of changing configurations, constructed boundaries and historic uses of Mill Creek underpins an installation that reconstructs the creek for travellers along its route. The physical changes that happened to Mill Creek are covered by four words – channelled, buried, moved and lost – which developed the framework to map the historic but phantom creek at ten locations across Cambridge. Each site highlights a moment in Mill Creek’s history and allows a person to connect the creek with an action and a location, even though the water may no longer be visible. A family of descriptive graphics was developed to tell the story at each point, allowing for the installation to be experienced both as a route and as individual sites. Mill Creek’s history of almost 200 years is mapped onto the ground in a visual way, allowing one to experience the whole timeline all at once – a type of new fiction for Mill Creek. c
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The ten-point walk is paired with a website, millcreekgalt.ca, that showcases archival maps and photographs of the lost creek, its ponds and bridges. And the process described in this article can also be found at branchplant.com/design/cbmlex
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