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The Project

South Georgian Bay Cultural Mapping Presentation from Greg Baeker on Vimeo.

Who is leading the project and what is it about?

The South Georgian Bay Cultural Mapping Project is a regional project being led by the Town of Collingwood partnering with the Town of the Blue Mountains, Clearview Township and Wasaga Beach.

It is one part of a larger Regional Economic Development Strategy funded by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development that will build on the assets of the four communities; guide economic development decision making; and facilitate investment attraction and economic growth in the Region.

What are the benefits of cultural mapping?

Cultural mapping is a tool to systematically identity, documents and make better known a wide range of local cultural assets. Cultural mapping has been a priority for the Province of Ontario for several years. In 2009, the Ontario Ministry of Culture launched the Creative Community Prosperity Fund, a $9 million program to support municipalities undertake cultural mapping and municipal cultural planning.

The benefits of cultural mapping include:

  • It promotes increased awareness of cultural assets for residents as well as visitors or tourists
  • It strengthens networks and collaboration among cultural, community and business groups;
  • It builds a stronger base of information to support municipal planning and to help grow the local creative economies.

Types of cultural mapping

There are two kinds of cultural mapping:

  • Asset Mapping – identifying and recording tangible cultural resources of all kinds usually making use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and,
  • Community Identity Mapping – exploring ‘intangible cultural resources’ – the unique stories and traditions that  define a community’s identity and sense of place.

The initial focus of the South Georgian Bay Cultural Mapping project is on cultural asset mapping but the project will lay the foundation for community identity mapping work to follow.

How does cultural asset mapping work?

It does not duplicate but complements existing information being collected by municipalities and other community groups by consolidating many existing sources of information to create ‘super databases’.
Cultural mapping feeds Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a municipal planning tool that enables you to locate all cultural assets on maps.

Information in the cultural mapping system will be maintained and updated by many individuals and organizations across the community.

For further information on the project, contact
Tanya Mazza, Coordinator, Arts and Culture;
Town of Collingwood.
Phone: 705.445.7450
E-mail: tmazza@collingwood.ca