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James Newhard, Doug Rivet (members of the 'Exploring Descendant Communities within the Spatial History of Charleston' 2025 NEH CDMI Fellowship team), and NEH Community Deep Mapping Institute Director Don Lafreniere presented to the Charleston Library Society on October 2nd.
Their talk centered on the rapidly growing field of deep mapping and unique ways in which to engage a community in creating detailed, public facing digital maps that integrate a rich body of spatial, historical, cultural, and environmental data to share a more robust and broader story of place and its people.
You can watch their talk, recorded by the Charleston Library Society, below:
Their talk centered on the rapidly growing field of deep mapping and unique ways in which to engage a community in creating detailed, public facing digital maps that integrate a rich body of spatial, historical, cultural, and environmental data to share a more robust and broader story of place and its people.
You can watch their talk, recorded by the Charleston Library Society, below:
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The Keweenaw Time Traveler team, in partnership with Wayne State University's Hamtramck Explorer team, and the Mapping Forest to Furniture project, led by the University of South Carolina hosted the First bi-annual Community Deep Mapping Symposium. The event took place in Sumter, South Carolina, from Monday, September 28th through Wednesday, September 30th.
The event brought together participants from around the world to engage in the hard work of developing a foundation of deep mapping practice. Events included presentations from 2024 Community Deep Mapping Fellows as well as 18 new project teams who are based in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Sardina.
Thanks to the generous support of the City of Sumter, Sumter Economic Development, and TheLINK, attendees were also treated to unique field trips and dining experiences within and around the City of Sumter. These tours included a City of Sumter tour led by the last general manager of William's Furniture, Drewry Penn and a walk through Congaree National Park led by John Grego, President of Friends of Congaree Swamp.
The event would not have been possible without the generous support of these community groups as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities, Congaree National Park, Friends of Congaree Swamp, The History Center, McCausland College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina, the Center for Geospatial Research and Technology and Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University, and the Department of Anthropology at Wayne State University.
The event would not have been possible without the generous support of these community groups as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities, Congaree National Park, Friends of Congaree Swamp, The History Center, McCausland College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina, the Center for Geospatial Research and Technology and Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University, and the Department of Anthropology at Wayne State University.
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The symposium took place on the UM-Ann Arbor campus on May 21, 2026, as part of the Towards Community-Based, Shared Stewardship project. The symposium brought together a diverse group of speakers and attendees with the aim of having productive conversations about how to build and encourage further shared stewardship among Michigan Archives and collaborations with the descendants and communities represented in their collections.
As part of the symposium’s opening panel, Hiltunen and Dr. Scarlett worked with Eric Gollannek of the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society and Sarah Lundy of Hope College to examine collaborations between archival repositories, libraries and local communities to preserve community histories in ways that are responsive to community needs.
Hiltunen presented on the archival origins of the Keweenaw Time Traveler (KeTT) and the importance of listening to collaborators outside of the Van Pelt and Opie Library during the project as well as outreach opportunities as the platform continues to grow. Scarlett reviewed 10 years of community engagement in building the KeTT and recent collaborations with heritage partners, including running the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-sponsored Community Deep Mapping Institute in 2025.
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The Copper Country Historical Images Spatial Image Catalog was featured in an ArcWatch Education profile this February. The article, written by Kimberly Hartley, celebrates the work of data-librarian and KeTT team member Bob Cowling in designing this new catalog along with his work creating the mobile version of the Keweenaw Time Traveler. The full article can be found here: Michigan Technological University Puts Historical Photos in Their Place.
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The Keweenaw Time Traveler team and the inaugural cohort of Community Deep Mapping Institute (CDMI) Fellows presented their work at the Annual Meeting of the SSHA took place November 20th - 23rd at the Palmer House in Chicago, Illinois. Two sessions with a total of 8 papers were presented Friday afternoon. These sessions ranged from Don Lafreniere's discussion of aims of the CDMI in his paper entitled 'NEH Community Deep Mapping Institute - Fostering the Next-Generation of Historical Geography and GIS Scholars', to new methodological approaches inspired by the CDMI, to presentations from 5 project teams in attendance.
Other presentations by team members included; 'Mobile Digital Storytelling Impacts on Post-Industrial Landscape Perceptions' by Sarah Fayen Scarlett, James Juip, Bob Cowling, and Don Lafreniere, 'Community Resilience through GIS - Deep Mapping in Postindustrial Hamtramck' by Dan Trepal, Krysta Ryzewski, Don Lafreniere, and Bob Cowling, and 'A New Methodological Approach to Integrating Historical Photography into Historical Spatial Data Infrastructures' by James Juip, Bob Cowling, Sarah Fayen Scarlett, and Don Lafreniere.
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The Historical Society of Michigan has awarded the State History Award in its Websites category to Keweenaw Time Traveler partners, the Michigan Tech Archives, for the Copper Country Historical Images Database (CCHI). The CCHI is a collaboration between the Michigan Tech Archives and the Van Pelt and Opie Library's Digital Scholarship initiative. The image database, designed by KeTT team member Bob Cowling, has evolved onto the open-source Drupal platform and integrates interactive map-based discovery tools with engaging metadata, moderated community-based comments, and commerce features that allow controlled access to the high-resolution imagery. The Keweenaw Time Traveler was awarded this honor in 2023.
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Drs. Don Lafreniere and James Juip presented two papers at the 6th Conference of the European Society of Historical Demography. The conference took place at the Universita di Bologna, the oldest university in continuous operation in the world, from September 10th-13th. Discussion centered around the theme of minorities and majorities in historical populations. Both papers were presented in a session entitled 'Geospatial Approaches in Historical Demography'. The session started with 'Hazards in Children's Environments and their Impact on Social Mobility throughout Life-course', authored by James Juip and Don Lafreniere. This paper was followed by 'Modelling Neighborhoods for Historical Spatio-Demographic Analysis' authored by Don Lafreniere, James Townsend and James Juip. The session was rounded out by papers entitled 'Comparison of spatiotemporal evolution of infectious diseases in Belgium (1890-1950)', by Valentin Charlier, Thierry Eggerickx, Sophie O. Vanwambeke and 'The Lethal Grip of Heat: Mapping the Heat Wave - Mortality Nexus in Spain', by Dariya Ordanovich, Diego Ramiro, Aurelio Tobías, Ana Casanueva.
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The NEH Community Deep Mapping Institute (NEH CDMI) fellows have arrived in the Keweenaw for an intensive seven day in-person program focused on building community driven deep maps. Fellows have settled into the Laurium Manor Inn for the duration and can look forward to a plethora of fun Keweenaw adventures developed and supported by Keweenaw Time Traveler's community partners. Fellows explored downtown Calumet and Laurium with the Keweenaw National Historical Park staff, and can look forward to a visit to the Quincy Mine and Chassell Strawberry Festival along with a set of Deep Mapping workshops built my members of Michigan Technological University's Geospatial Research Facility. The in-person program will wrap up with a tour of the Keweenaw Peninsula, culminating in a curated local dinner at the Harbor Haus in Copper Harbor.
These in-person workshops would not be possible without the hard work of Keweenaw community partners and the generous financial support from Michigan Technological University, North Dakota State University, the Canterbury Shaker Village and many anonymous donors.
These in-person workshops would not be possible without the hard work of Keweenaw community partners and the generous financial support from Michigan Technological University, North Dakota State University, the Canterbury Shaker Village and many anonymous donors.
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The Michigan Historic Preservation Network's 45th Annual Statewide Preservation Conference took place at Lake Superior State University Thursday, May 15th through Saturday May 17th. The conference brought together historians, preservationists, architects, engineers, anthropologists, and archaeologists from around the state of Michigan invested in the process of historic preservation. Dr. Sarah Fayen-Scarlett shared a presentation co-authored by Dr. Juip, Mr. Cowling, and Dr. Lafreniere in the session 'Old Stories, New Tools: Engaging New Audiences through Digital Storytelling'. The talk centered around the value of using the Keweenaw Time Traveler as a unique tool for engaging members of the public in heritage making through the process of digital storytelling.
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Dr. Sarah Scarlett visited Houghton Middle School today. Students used the Keweenaw Time Traveler to connect and explore Houghton's past. Dr. Scarlett also passed out Houghton Bingo for students to try with their families.
