The PEI Museum recognises my Heritage Blog

Many of us who love to explore the history of the heritage of our Island, work in isolation, sharing our enthusiastic findings when and how we can. In two days will be the third anniversary of my first blog post, followed by over fifty bursts of enthusiasm in the succeeding 36 months. In my posts I wrote about a series of subjects, starting 20,000 years ago with the retreat of the glaciers and coming of the first indigenous peoples. For the past year and a half I have concentrated on the emergence of the Island on European maps and its successive blossoming into the catographic treasures of the late Nineteenth Century.

The Prince Edward Island Museum included me in their list of award recipients for 2022 and on February 27 presented me (sadly, in absentia) with a Heritage Recognition Award for my work on Island maps. In their letter the Museum said,

The Heritage Recognition Awards recognise individuals and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the knowledge and understanding of an aspect of the heritage of Prince Edward Island. Heritage includes human and natural history, and activities that aim to preserve architectural heritage, folklore, culture, archives, archaeology, genealogy and history in all its forms.

This is the award that I received.

The citations were read by Dr. Matthew McRae, the Executive Director of the Museum.

This was my citation:

Reg Porter’s Heritage Blog has contributed significantly to our knowledge and understanding of the heritage of PEI. His recent series of posts related to the cartographic history of PEI are a fine example.

The series takes readers from the earliest cartographic images of the Island, through the French and English colonial mappings such as the Holland Survey, the Atlantic Neptune and the Captain Bayfield charts.

It carries on through a treatment of the Lake Map of 1863, the 1880 Meacham’s Atlas, the series of Island maps by George Wright and Henry Cundall and the 20th century map images of the Second World War.

In more than 20 well-researched, well-written and well-illustrated postings, Reg has brought the Island’s cartographic and topographic history to the attention of both experienced researchers and those with a more general interest.

Of particular interest to many are the four postings on the Meacham’s Atlas posted in August and September of 2021, which provide details on the life of the creator of the Atlas which have never before appeared in print.

Those postings also addressed the publishing process, the reaction to the publication of the Atlas, an analysis of the maps themselves and a discussion of the illustrations of farms and businesses which make the Atlas so valuable to researchers of Island history.

The presentation of this information in an electronic online format has made it available to the widest possible audience at no charge.

For his online publication series concerning the historic mapping of Prince Edward Island, we are pleased to present REG PORTER with a HERITAGE RECOGNITION AWARD.

Through complicated difficulties in arranging transportation to Summerside I was unable to attend the ceremony, and so my presence there was represented only by a large picture of me on a large screen accompanied by my four cats, and sitting in my study with a glass of sherry.

Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor Antoinette Perry, following tradition, presented the awards. This practice has always added gravity and elegance to the moment. Since she was an old acquaintance and a dear friend I asked her to accept the award on my behalf. When I called on her to pick it up, knowing how much I appreciate the spirit of the moment, she had arranged to make a formal presentation at Government House and to have a photograph taken to add to the Museum’s collection. Maintaining proper Covid isolation, and removing face masks for an instant, this was the happy result.

I was completely surprised, charmed, and filled with gratitude at this act of kindness and thoughtfulness. Thank you Your Honour! Only on the Island…

And thank you, Prince Edward Island Museum, for your generous recognition of the work I do that, in the end, is an extension of your daily activities in collecting, cataloguing, conserving and sharing the heritage of the Island with the world. I am delighted beyond expression that the Museum has begun to recognise digital publishing of heritage material for the first time by giving me this award.