"The word 'topophilia' is a neologism, useful in that it can be defined broadly to include all of the human being's affective ties with the material environment. These differ greatly in intensity, subtlety, and mode of expression. The response to environment may be primarily aesthetic: it may vary from the fleeting pleasure one gets from a view to the equally fleeting but far more intense sense of beauty that is suddenly revealed. The response may be tactile, a delight in the feel of air, water, earth. More permanent and less easy to express are the feelings that one has toward a place because it is home, the locus of memories, and the means of gaining a livelihood" - Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophila, p. 93
Affective ties with the material environment... in other words, the love of place. This is an important idea that impacts the way humans interact with the world. Special places make us more connected to ourselves, other people, and the environment. It is also the focus of a 2-part writing assignment.
1. What is a place that you love? A special area in nature that brings back strong memories, a place you love to visit because of the things that have happened there. Maybe it's a built-up space, like the home of a grandparent or an amazing restaurant? Maybe it's a natural location like a beach, mountain vista, bike trail, or fishing spot. Or in between, like a cabin. What is the inventory of this location -- the topography, components, objects, characteristics? What do your senses remember? Consider the visually elements, but also smells, textures, and sounds. What is the story of this place... what is your history with it? Think about this and write leave a comment below with your response. Start with a word document -- do your writing there and then copy & paste into a blog comment here.
2. For the next step, think about about your earliest experience with the natural world, a powerful memory in nature. To get an idea what this looks like, read the intro and take a look at the examples from others at http://www.myplacebook.ca/. You can leave a response there if you want, but you have to be 18 (it's for academic research). So, write your response onto a word document to save in your files and place in your portfolio. This is a writing assignment, call it creative non-fiction if you will, and will be part of what is assessed.
1. What is a place that you love? A special area in nature that brings back strong memories, a place you love to visit because of the things that have happened there. Maybe it's a built-up space, like the home of a grandparent or an amazing restaurant? Maybe it's a natural location like a beach, mountain vista, bike trail, or fishing spot. Or in between, like a cabin. What is the inventory of this location -- the topography, components, objects, characteristics? What do your senses remember? Consider the visually elements, but also smells, textures, and sounds. What is the story of this place... what is your history with it? Think about this and write leave a comment below with your response. Start with a word document -- do your writing there and then copy & paste into a blog comment here.
2. For the next step, think about about your earliest experience with the natural world, a powerful memory in nature. To get an idea what this looks like, read the intro and take a look at the examples from others at http://www.myplacebook.ca/. You can leave a response there if you want, but you have to be 18 (it's for academic research). So, write your response onto a word document to save in your files and place in your portfolio. This is a writing assignment, call it creative non-fiction if you will, and will be part of what is assessed.
When you have completed this 2-part activity, you will have two items to place in your assessment portfolio. You'll also have the opportunity to share some of your writing next time we are in Seminar. Remind me to tell you about the cabin in the photo.
I don’t really have a place that I connect or have any real important history with. It’s more like… people and wherever they are is where I have memories of things we did or said. I am a very awkward person so anywhere I go I sort of feel awkward. I guess, if I were to choose a place, it would have to be Quinson Elementary School. Quinson was the fourth elementary school I ever attended and a huge part of why I am who I am today. The only reason I love music as much as I do is because of my music teacher and choir conductor, Mrs. Duerkson. Quinson has a lot of memories for me and I guess that it is the place that has the most topophilia for me.
ReplyDeleteDescribe the physical qualities or characteristics of Ms. D's classroom and learning environment (over and above the qualities she possessed). What helped make it memorable?
DeleteI don't really remember her classroom except for all the music books but i know that she is very nice and she loves music. She runs the Prince George Tapestry Choir. i was in her school choir and she helped me find my voice. i still sing songs from that choir all the time and i go to visit her on a semi regular basis because she was and is such an inspiration for me.
DeleteTopophilia Writing Project.
ReplyDeleteOne of my most memorable places would be rattle snake island. Rattle snake island is a he rock that fell of the rock cliff located across from Peachland, Okanogan. I grew up going there with my dad’s side of the family, swimming there and jumping off this huge rock into the Okanogan lake.
I started jumping when I was six years-old, and have loved it ever since. Three years ago when my grandmother passed away we went down to Peachland to spread the ashes of my grandfather, grandmother, and my aunt. We took my uncles boat to rattle snake island, and climbed up to where the only tree and green was on the rock and we spread there ashes.
We chose the island because even my grandparents went there as kids. Standing on the island you can see all of Peachland, and even the shores of Westbank. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, and also one of the most fun, going there now brings back so many memories of my childhood. Every time I go to the Okanogan I have to go there, it is beautiful, it is also my safe place.
When my cousin passed away I actually swam to the island from peachland because it was the only place I felt safe at the time. I love Rattle snake island with everything I have, I one day hope to have to privilege to take my family there so they can look at it the same way I do, and can make the same memories I have. I hope to one day rest there with my grandparents as well.
-Jessica S
Wow, this is really beautiful. What an amazing intersection of stories -- some fun and some serious, all of them related to your history and your identity. Fantastic.
DeleteMy place of choice would have to be Mabel Lake, a small Lake 30 minutes from Enderby BC. Every year my family and I go camping there to visit with our family and camp for a week or two. I have the most fond memories there because of my cousins who I love to spend time with and the many other kids our age we get to see every year. There is tons of room to run around and do whatever we want so we have lots of fun. That is why I have such fond memories of Mabel Lake.
ReplyDeleteThat's great... this seems like a magical place. Could you describe a bit more? Physical/natural characteristics... the details... sights, sounds, smells, etc. Trees vs trails, is the water cold, etc.
DeleteMy favorite place in the world is on the beautiful shores of Stewart Lake, in a bay called Luck Bay sits a little cream colored cabin with a green deck and green tin roof. Surrounded by nature its like walking away from all your worries. Walking into the doors is like walking into my mind with all the memories that happened here, from the time I was 3 weeks old I have been coming here and have grown up in theses walls. My grandparents built this cabin over forty years ago and have been coming out to this place years before that when they were just children. The smell is always different, in the summer it smells like freshly cut grass, in the fall it smells of the leaves that are fallen all over with there bright colors of red, yellow and orange. No matter the season, no matter when I would go out there, today even.
ReplyDelete~David F.
Stuart Lake by FSJ? Sounds amazing. I'm interested in the "temporal" aspects of this place. How do you experience the cabin differently now compared to when you were a little kid? How has the cabin changed over the years?
DeleteMy favorite place in the entire world is on beautiful Vancouver Island in a small town called Tahsis. This place is my beloved because I love being there. When I am there I do my most favorite thing witch is to fish and hunt. In Tahsis is where my grandparent live and spend there time. Here is where you can go to clear your head and take you away from any problems and have a great time. I have been going there for the past 10 years. Every year I go there for about a month or longer and have the best time of my life. All of my greatest memories have been made here. I love everything about there from the landscape witch is for every engraved in my memories to the smell that witch the ocean gives off I love every thing about it.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I could I would go there right now.
-Blake H.
I've always wanted to go to Tahsis. Rain/forest, saltspray, logging roads, eagles... I imagine it that way but I'm sure it would be different, less general than that. You've given a broad description of Tahsis... could you elaborate a bit on one or two particular spots? Provide some details.
DeleteTopophilia Writing Project:
ReplyDeleteOne of my most memorable moments would be camping with my entire family in our family camping spot located an hour or so out of Grand Prarie. We would all bring our quads, razors, dirt bikes, guns and along with the guns skeets to have our annual gun competition. We would all take our turn shooting five skeets and the one to shoot the most wins. The adults would all go first and children second, then the best out of both would shoot against each other.
These camping trips are always special to me because my all of my close family comes to have a great time and make memories. We would bring a chainsaw and that’s how we got our fire wood, we were in the middle of no where, we would bring our music and blast it all night and no one could say anything because there was no one to say anything, no one but us and trees and annoying birds, the only time it was quiet was when we were sleeping, which wasn’t often. There was a lake near so we would bring our boat and I would teach my little cousins how to kneeboard and wakeboard and once they got the hold of it we would do it together.
This year were going back around summer so it’ll be warmer and hopefully the weather wont be lots of rain like last time. We’ll have more time to prepare for the annual gun competition and longer with the quads. The feeling that spot gives me is just, well indescribable.
What's awesome about your description is the absence of people playing with technology... although if guns count as toys then you still got to play! Great connection between people, place, and activity... a few of the "themes of geography" are at work here.
DeleteThe place that I love is in Scotland. I’ve only been there twice but it was amazing both times. It’s on a farm in Denny. Whenever I’m there it brings back memories like playing on the hay bales, failing at cow tipping, and walking up a creek in the rain. When you get there all you smell is cow and chicken coop. It’s not the greatest smell but I don’t really care. When you look out onto the fields my uncle has, all you see is green. Green just goes on forever. Sometimes in the morning you hear cows and they wake you up, that was annoying. My uncle took over this farm for his dad about 35 years ago and now his son is taking over the farm for him. I love going there because I get to see all my family. I cant wait to go back.
ReplyDelete- Kyrsten C.
Incredible to think that this place, these places, in Scotland that mean something to you also meant something special to generations before you. Your ancestors no doubt had some of the same insights.
DeleteTopophilia Writing Assignment
ReplyDeletePulling open the brown door in front of me, I am immediately greeted with the smell I’m most familiar with; a mix of sweat and febreeze. Not a particularly nice smell, but nonetheless comforting. I thrust my key back into my jacket pocket, shut the alarm off, and turn on the lights. Walking up the 4 small stairs, I open up the 2 doors leading to different rooms. I walk in the office and turn on the heat in attempt to slightly warm the building before people arrive. I walk over into the change room and throw my bags on the old shag carpet, just like I would as if I were in my own room at home. Running my hand through my hair I walk over to my locker and pull out my notebooks and CD’s I’ll need for the day. I keep my hoodie and sweats on, grab my phone, Starbucks and shoes, and head back downstairs. Opening up another door leading to the first studio, I’m greeted again with the slight smell of sweat left over from Friday’s classes. I put down my belongings and sit down on the cold floor. I feel so comfortable when I’m at my dance studio; it’s hard to NOT treat it like a second home. It’s the place I’ve come to every day after school to learn, teach and grow. Everyday I’m greeted by a mob of kids I can call my family, ranging from age five all the way up to eighteen, plus my experienced teachers. And any second a group of them are going to run through the door and this day is going to start. Six hours of school can feel long and drawn out, regardless of whether you’re with your friends or not. Spending both Saturday and Sunday at my studio from 9:30am-5pm flies by so quickly. The main door opens with a squeak. I wait to hear a voice scream throughout the building, letting everyone else know they have arrived. After one “hello”, comes another, and another, and another. The door is constantly opening and closing with kids arriving, leaving, and switching between buildings. Only an hour into the day the building has kids, teachers, holds the smell of heated food, and carries the sound of music for the entire surrounding area to hear. I love at my studio because it’s where I can do what I love with the people I love to be with.
-Paige C.
You are a great writer! I imagine most dance studios to be roughly the same... cavernous space and florescent lighting, mirrors, scuffed walls, mats, etc., but I did not think about how they contain so much sense and story. The sounds and smells alone make the studio a unique place, especially with the ebb and flow of people during the day and especially (x10) when one spends as much time there as you do. It would be cool to see a time-lapse of a dance studio, get a sense of how a simple room contains so much drama over the course of a day.
DeleteMy place of choice is HMCS Quadra, on Vancouver Island. To clarify, no, it is not a boat, it is a sea cadet summer camp, or ‘training center’. It is on Goose Spit, near Comox. Therefore, it is surrounded by sandy beaches and of course the ocean. It is set up like a sort of miniature city, with sleeping quarters at one end, the jetty at the other, and the dining hall, parade deck, and many other buildings in between. From one end to the other, it is about 2 km long.
ReplyDeleteThe most amazing thing, is stepping off the bus at the beginning of the summer, after a long day of traveling, and smelling the ocean for the first time, and knowing that I get to spend the next several weeks there. A close second, is the rainstorms. The rain is always warm, and sometimes it comes down so hard that the pathways start to flood. It is always a ton of fun.
The reason I chose this place is because it feels like a second home to me, and for six weeks a year, it holds my second family. I have a lot of truly amazing memories here. My first of these, I think I will remember forever. I was thirteen years old, off to spend three weeks at an unfamiliar camp with a bunch of people I did not know. It was close to midnight the first time I arrived. I could see the lights across the water as we drove up, and as I looked out the window, I saw some deer standing by the side of the road. I don’t know why, but at that moment, most of my nervousness evaporated. I felt like I was going home. And I still have that feeling every time the bus goes over that last hill, and we descend down to Quadra, to make another great year of memories.
I get chills reading this... you do an amazing job explaining how this place affects you -- a brilliant piece of writing, in part because of how you navigate the boundary between human and physical geography -- stories (your stories) and place together at HMCS Quadra
DeletePippa Roots
ReplyDeleteSept. 25
A place that has strong memories is my grandparents’ cabin. It is a wooden cabin by the side of a shallow lake in Nova Scotia. It is a hand built cabin, with a loft and a screen room. The lake is full of rocks, some almost stick out of the water in the middle. My cousins use it more so there are old pool toys and swim masks lying around. It is a forested area, with long grass filling the clearing. Because of the long trip to get there, the cabin is to me the essence of summer. As we never go when it’s raining, to me it’s always hot and sunny there. The wood cabin always has a kind of musty smell, like hot wood. The water is so shallow it is almost bath temperature, and smells clean and fresh. It is secluded from the neighbors, so we never hear anything but ourselves and the ducks. We have gone to my grandparents’ and their cabin every summer for a long time. It was built by my Grandpa many years ago, and is part of what summer at their place is. This is a place that embodies what I think of as summer vacation.
Gorgeous! Your piece of writing has a great deal of power, so many connections come to mind. The musty smell of hot wood... I think I know that smell, maybe we all do -- who hasn't walked into a cabin and been enveloped by that smell. When we arrive at the cabin, especially after a long time away, the smell brings on all the joy of anticipation for the hours ahead and good times remembered. It is also a bit sad, for it reminds us how we have changed and how fast time has flown. It is an old smell.
DeleteTopophilia
ReplyDeleteAustin Martel
Sept. 25
There is this place; this place is full of memories. Even though I barely spent anytime there I can remember it vividly. Sherwood Park, Alberta is the place I’m referring to. 2 years ago I moved there but sadly I moved back to Prince George. Prince George is a good town, but Sherwood Park was my new beginning I had some of the greatest friends there and that’s what made the experience extravagant. I remember long boarding around the streets at night and how the warm wind brushed across my face. Or when my friends and I would have movie nights together and enjoy our company. Luckily I get to visit there every so often. But one day I’m going to move there and try to enjoy the adventure for longer.
New friends and positive experiences help make places special. What else? Sherwood Park covers a lot of area... could you provide a description of one or two specific locales? What are some of the physical or human charactersistics that make SP great?
DeleteI love your line "Sherwood Park was my new beginning." I would love to hear more about how the place had an impact on you. Interesting that you want to go back to your place of a new beginning.
DeleteOne place that I absolutely love is nowhere. Not a single place has ever really spoke out to me nor made me want to be there. The biggest place in my heart would be my home. Specifically, my room. My room has always been there for me, when I’m sad, when I’m angry. And just when I want to be alone. Whenever I need some comfort, I go to my room and curl up on my bed in a blanket. My room is my home, and it always will be.
ReplyDeleteHome is powerful, no doubt. The philosopher Martin Heidegger used the term "dasein" to talk about how humans have a unique ability to "ground" or "home" their existence. I dunno, maybe some animals do it, too. Dasein literally means "being there," like being in a place or situation where our existence makes sense. It sounds like your home is full of positive dasein.
DeleteMy grandparents’ cabin on Lakelse Lake, 30 minutes from Kitimat. We would go there almost every weekend in the summer. The cabin is on a slight hill with a beautiful view of the lake. It surrounded by trees, and wildlife thrives there. When you walk in the cabin you enter the kitchen. All you can smell is musky old wood. Then you enter the living room where there’s a fireplace to your right and to your left there’s stair that go to the bedrooms. Against the back wall there’s a green couch that seems to have been used for too long. Across from that there’s a small TV that has a DVD player, and a VCR under it, it still has bunny ears that only get 1 Chanel. I’ll always remember the rainy days we spent at the table playing card or watching a Disney movie on the couch snuggled up in a blanket, or jumping into the ice cold lake in the early season when no one else would go in. This is the place I wish I could go every day and I miss more than any other place in the world.
ReplyDelete~Kennedy C.
This is just great! The green couch is inviting... it's "lived history" is as dynamic as if it were a person. The cabin is a container for your memories... like a part of your brain you only fully access by going on a journey. See Pippa's comment & my reply to see about the smell of old wood. I'm seeing from reading these comments that special places are often very simple places, and almost always allow some kind of retreat from routine, or provide access to some ancient routine that beats more in tune with the human heart
DeleteA place that I have grown fond of and have strong memories with is Shelburne Ontario. I spent the a good chunk of my childhood growing up there. When I go there I reminisce about my childhood experiences. How hot it was in the summer and I would almost burn my bare feet by standing on the asphalt for to long. Being are my friends and the majority of my family. Hearing tons of crickets in the evening as the breeze helped cool us off. Me and my friends would walk all around town looking at old and new buildings that helped sculpt the town. Making cookie-dough out of playground rocks and snow in the winter. It wasn't a city but neither a small town so it had just the right amount of noise of traffic and the sounds of human activity and nature.So if you wanted to you didn't have to go far out to find silence and time to yourself. Just the essence of being connected and having strong roots to the place and people really sticks with you as you continue with life. It was just one of those places were you were care free because you were still young regardless of season or rough patches in ones life.
ReplyDelete-Annika
I'm stunned by this... just gorgeous. Crickets, rock & ice cookie-dough, and the value of silence. It is special places like this that have the power to make strong impressions, especially on kids, and so it always holds a piece of your childhood. I wonder if kids today will grow up and say "I loved playing on my ipad as a kid, it made me feel whole." I like technology, but there is a powerful role for nature to play in forming our identity and I'm so glad you reminded me of this.
DeleteIt so wonderful to read and be transported to so many 'imaginative geographies' shared here. I always find the characteristics that we imbue our favourite places with to reveal so much of ourselves as individuals and a culture; there is a lot of BC, the West, and Canada as *an idea* here, and it makes for rich reading. Thanks for making this assignment open so that we can share in it!
ReplyDeleteAs my own contribution, I often get caught wandering listlessly in my mind across the southern states, where I attended university. I grew up in the Vancouver suburbs, but was a track and field athlete who competed for four years in Arkansas and a lot of its surrounding states. I spent long hours in team vans and busses traveling across the Mississippi Delta, up toward the northern plains, and west into Texas a time or two.
Coming from BC, I never thought too much of the aesthetic qualities of my time down south - flaaaaaat, no ocean, etc. But since moving home (in 2004), and especially lately, whenever I see images of the south on TV or in movies, I'm filled with nostalgia for endless cotton fields and the collapsing farm-houses of the rural south. I miss the sound of cicadas, and crickets, and wind traveling through tall grass. The slow rolling of the Mississippi River as it winds its way to New Orleans, draining the silt of the American continent at long last into the ocean.
But the place I miss most, I think, is a summer camp I worked at near a town called Damascus, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. I spent three summers working and living out of a canvas tent in those woods, new the colour of southern sunsets and the sound of cotton mouth snakes slipping onto the water. I learned the cadences of southern speech, and a little of how people in that part of the world think and feel about their relationships with one another, and the history of their land.
I was young then, and the War on Terror was new. I was a long way from home and a lot was reminding me that I wasn't at home in the south, at the time. When I moved home I was happy to be back in BC, back near the ocean, and the mountains, and "my people." But as time moves on, I realize more and more how much those years, those places, and those people left in me.
I want to go back, and I know I will one day. But I assume that in many ways I won't be going back to visit those places, or those people so much as I'll be re-united with myself, and who I thought I was - who I thought I might become - way back when.
Way back when I was young, and knew the way to Memphis in the dark, and "real life" was at the other end of a highway headed north.
The special place that I love is not as general as just a building or a lake that I have visited mainly because I cant think of any special building or lakes that I went to growing up because it was difficult to get out and do things due o the fact that we always had foster kids in our home. The place that I love and that is special to me is a town, and that town is Wainwright. Wainwright is a small, peaceful town near Edmonton. What I remember about this place is going to see my moms side of the family, spending the week there for our family reunions and then spending a few days at West Edmonton Mall before heading home. I love this place because It feels like home and I am always surrounded by loved ones when I am there, also because my grandma and grandpa are buried there. So this place is very special to me.
ReplyDelete-Hailey.green
The place that I love the most is a place I've gone every summer for as long as I can remember. Just outside of Kelowna, there's a little town called Fintry. It's right on the Okanogan, sunny weather and warm winds at night. It's not a place that I get to go to as much as I would want, but every time I'm there I feel like I'm 5 years old again. Fintry is the place I feel the most at home. I think the main reason I feel so close to Fintry is because it's where my dad and I are the closest. To me, it's the happiest place on earth.
ReplyDelete-Emily Sewell
I haven't seen much of Prince George and Canada so far but if I must choose my favorite place I would take a little island on Purden lake. It doesn't have a name because it's just 30 feet long (approximately). I like this place because it's starts very flat so u can walk on it and ends very high and steep so you can jump into the blue water
ReplyDeleteJan Sondergeld