A decade has passed since Alan MacEachern found himself in the basement of Environment Canada’s headquarters, amidst aisles upon aisles of historical weather reports.
There, the Western History professor found a treasure trove of previously untapped information that would offer insight on climate change in Canada. Hoping to unearth the documents and provide them a proper archival home, he arranged for the collection to be stored on a long-term loan at the university’s Archives and Research Collections Centre (ARCC). It is believed to be the first such archival arrangement between a federal agency and a university in Canada.
In 2014, the collection arrived at Western. Since, MacEachern has been compiling Canada’s climate history by transcribing previously ignored details in the reports.
“Environment Canada never did anything with the qualitative material; they always did things with the (climate data) numbers, but never with the words that these observers wrote down,” said MacEachern, Research Chair in the Department of History.
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Image via Western University.