94 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
BY JONATHON KEATS
today. To facilitate the process, they
found a surplus large-format film camera
and took the photos anew. With practice
and persistence — and frequent lifts
from friendly helicopter pilots — they
replicated the survey over two summers.
Careful analysis by Rhemtulla revealed
that forest cover had become denser and
more homogenous. Jasper had changed
over the years, with implications for
habitat and fire susceptibility, and the
Alberta team couldn’t have found out
any other way.
Higgs didn’t know it at first, but he’d
stumbled onto a research technique
called repeat photography, which dates
back more than a century. The work at
Jasper would actually go on to produce
one of the largest repeat photography
initiatives on the planet, known as the
Mountain Legacy Project.
LOOKING THROUGH HISTORY
Repeat photography began in the 1880s,
less than half a century after photogra-
phy was invented. The technique was
first enlisted to monitor annual changes
to alpine glaciers and to document the
growth of plants, enhancing observations
Practice Makes
Picture Perfect
Repeat photography allows scientists to study
truly long-term ecological changes.
Jasper National Park sprawls over 4,200 square miles of
the Rocky Mountains in Alberta. Celebrated for its forests,
glaciers and backcountry trails, the Canadian park also hosts
retail outlets and franchise restaurants catering to crowds of
tourists. Starting in the mid-1990s, as development accelerated
and traffic soared, University of Alberta researchers set out to
study how best to restore the natural environment. They soon
realized they knew little about the park’s original conditions.
Luckily, a warden had just discovered a stash of 735 black-
and-white photographs stored in an old basement. The pictures
were taken in 1915, less than a decade after the park’s founding.
“We realized they were something special,” recalls University of
Victoria ecologist Eric Higgs, who led the restoration’s research
effort while at Alberta. “Clearly it wasn’t a personal album.”
Grouped by location, and facing in all directions, the pictures
appeared to be the product of a long-forgotten survey.
Higgs and graduate student Jeanine Rhemtulla, now at the
University of British Columbia, decided to see if they could find
the original vistas, hoping to compare the images with the views
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HISTORY LESSONS
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INO(
2 )Researchers armed
with historical photos
aim to re-create
shots to document
changes at King
Creek Ridge in
Alberta, Canada. It’s
a scientific technique
known as repeat
photography.