The Rossdale Pipeline aims to flatten history – to bring the past up to the level of the present, so that Rossdale’s diverse narratives can be read in simultaneity. In order to do this, we will group historical and present moments according to the themes of Trade, Traffic, Play, Power, Dwell, View, and Name. All groupings will appear on a Hypercities map, which will allow users to read Rossdale by one or more themes, in a way that will promote the discovery of new, interconnected narratives between the past and present.

To view our working definitions of each theme, select the links above. Each is prefaced by a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary and an excerpt from a long poem sequence called “Contemplating the City” by Alice Major. Alice Major is an enormously talented Edmonton poet who served as the city’s first Poet Laureate. The sequence “Contemplating the City” was part of the collection The Occupied World, published by the University of Alberta Press in 2006.