Artistic Community Mapping from 19 islands in the Salish Sea- exploring how local and regional maps highlight important qualities of nature, culture and ecoregion.

In the late 1990s, communities across the Canadian Islands in the Salish Sea came together on a creative mission to map what they cherished at the turn of the millennium. Led by a small group of islanders, artists and community members from18 of the islands began mapping their home places, creating an atlas of beautifully rendered maps that revealed a unique way of understanding what is important to the people who lived there.  Now, almost a quarter century later, those maps have been presented in a digital atlas so they can be shared more widely, allowing a larger audience to reflect on how community mapping can show cultural values, inform conservation, and inspire creativity. This presentation will talk about the initial motivations and outcomes of the original project, how and why the project was digitized, and the benefits of wide-spread community mapping projects to connect with the land and the people who live there.

About the Speaker

Left- Burt Webber standing in the sun, silver hair and wire framed glasses, top right Olivia Hobson half-kneeling by lavender flower, wavy brown hair and sunglasses on top of her head, bottom right Sheila Harrington smiling, long silver hair with rocky terrain in background.
Sheila Harrington, Olivia Hobson & Bert Webber
Sheila Harrington: Co-editor & Coordinator Islands in the Salish Sea, The Island Map Explorer website | Olivia Hobbson: GIS Technician, Blue Water GIS | Bert Webber: Emeritus Professor WWU, Member of the Advisory Committee of the Salish Sea Institute

Sheila Harrington has lived on the islands, sailed around and written about the Salish Sea for several decades. While living on Salt Spring, she was co-editor and coordinator of the award winning, Islands in the Salish Sea, Community Atlas. She published a national magazine, Positive Vibrations, in the early ‘90s and went on to be the founding Executive Director of the Land Trust Alliance of BC for 12 years.  In June of 2024, Sheila authored, Voices for the Islands, Thirty Years of Nature Conservation on the Salish Sea, published by Heritage House. 

Olivia Hobson: Olivia graduated from WWU in winter of 2022 with a BA in environmental journalism and her GIS certificate. She works for Blue Water GIS in Bellingham, a GIS consulting company that works with a variety of organizations on resource conservation, science communication and spatial storytelling.

Bert Webber: Bert Webber, Professor Emeritus at Western Washington University, earned a degree in marine biology from the University of British Columbia before spending two years at Stanford's Marine Laboratory. He worked at Wake Forest University before returning to the Pacific Northwest in 1970 to join the new Environmental Studies program at WWU. His early interest focused on oil spill threats and the interconnectedness of the Salish Sea ecosystem, when it became clear that the Strait of Georgia, Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound were best described as a world class estuary with very high levels of natural resources. 

Environmental Speaker Series

The Environmental Speaker Series is hosted by the College of the Environment at Western Washington University.

The Series is free and open to the public. Talks are held each Thursday at 4:30 pm in Academic Instructional Center West room 204 - AW-204. Talks will also be streamed via Zoom. Register with The Foundation for WWU & Alumni for the zoom link. Parking is available in lot C.

Learn more about the Environmental Speaker Series

Email Alumni@wwu.edu to be added to a mailing list to hear about upcoming events.