The long now: Re-framing prairie rivers

Abstract

Spring flooding regularly occurs in the plain along the Assiniboine River’s low-lying terminus in eastern Manitoba as the river attempts to accommodate snowmelt drained from the central plains territory of North America. The annual insensitive response to the changing state of the river is a physical expression of competing understandings of time made manifest in the landscape. Can the consideration of time shift our understanding of flooding in the prairie context? How can a deep sense of time be expressed in our reaction to the design of the land? Shifting to thinking of a time-sensitive response to flooding, I aim to construct a hybrid cartography that addresses the relationship between observer and understanding fundamental to relevant critical projects in the landscape. This approach aims to understand the geographic and temporal context to reveal deep synchronicities ignored by rational approaches to both fluvial engineering and design.