Canoe Pavilion - Information

When the European explorers first reached North America they found a land of impenetrable forests. They settled along the edge of this land, leaving the interior to the natives. Eventually the explorers had mapped all that they could from thier sailing ships and the adventurers turned towards the interior. The explorers heard of a great body of water to the west so they travelled by canoe to find that body of water and found the Great Lakes. Then they heard of other great bodies of water and travelled by canoe to Great Slave Lake. Then up the Mackenzie to the Artic Ocean. They travelled the Fraser to the Pacific and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

These rivers were more than rivers, they were the highway system of this great land. These were the routes that had been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years, a vast network of rivers that allowed travel through the entire continent. These were the routes that became the routes for the explorers, then the fur traders, then the geologists, and now the recreational canoeist. These rivers, lakes, and portages were Canada's first information highway so we decided to use them and the canoe for our feature pavilion on the newest information highway.

The Grand Challenge

The Grand Challenge is to be the feature part of our feature pavilion. We want to colect pictures and stories of every place in Canada that people visit by canoe. Send in your photographs and trip reports and help meet The Grand Challenge. We are curently working on a hierarchical map system to browse through the country with.

What is it about?

What is the 1996 Internet World Exposition? Imagine visitors from all corners of the globe exploring the beauty, richness, traditions and diversity of the Canadian landscape. Imagine being able to visit Singapore and enjoying the festivities of the Chinese New Year, going on an expedition to Dharmasala to listen to the Dalai Lama, or learning about the Otavalo weaving tradition in the highlands of Ecuador. Imagine all this from your computer desktop. This is all happening at the 1996 Internet World Exposition (http://park.org/).

This global event is the first world's fair where anyone can open a pavilion, and anyone can participate. Though different from the industrial age expositions, this is still a real world's fair: over $100 million US in resources from industry and government has been contributed to make this a world's fair for the information age.

Objectives: The Internet World Exposition strives for three goals:

1. Introduce people to the Internet and show them how this technology works, much as people learned about railroads, lighting, power, and other technologies in prior world expositions;
2. Draw together engineers and industry to build public works projects for the global village (such as building a truely global internet);
3. Challenge the state of the art by providing a highly visible place for engineers and researchers to show the results of their efforts.

Who is the Canadian Presence? Canada is among 30 countries participating in this ongoing global construction project for the entire year as pavilions, exhibits, and events are added. Carleton University undertook the challenge of leading a Canadian initiative to participate at this event.

Objectives of the Canadian Presence: In addition to the three basic goals of the World initiative, the Canadian effort in its selection of the theme, Theatres of Learning, has the following objectives:

1. Emphasize the importance of knowledge and information as we move from an industrial-based society to the information age.
2. Emphasize the integral role of education in our future,
3. Promote Canadian Excellence and innovation, and
4. Promote better communications between Canadians,
5. Encourage full participation of all Canadians, to work together, as we enter this new world.

The Role of the Canadian Organizers: The Canadian organizers view their role as coordininating the Canadian presence. This involves building a Canadian Park, as part of the Central Park for the Global Village and encouraging the participation of everyone, individuals, government, business and industry to help in building our pavilions, to bring our events to the world, and to create real places where people can visit the fair to learn about cultures from around the world and this key technology which will influence our lives for years to come.

The Canadian Park will consist of a large Internet server to house the Canadian pavilions and events. As well, with the addition of higher capacity international links, this park will also mirror pavilions from around the world to provide better access to the exposition for Canadians. With our sponsors, we will encourage and invite Canadians to accept this challenge and take this unique opportunity to display their creativity, and the richness of Canada's economic, social, cultural and technological fabric to the world.

To fullfill some of our objectives, we have chosen to build as our "flagship" a Canoe Pavilion. This pavilion celebrates a symbol of wilderness and adventure long associated with the identity of Canada. Its legacy is intrinsically tied with the history and early economic development of this vast nation. It is the vehicle of our first information highway, our lakes and waterways.

As a link to our rich heritage, we are using the canoe

1. As a metaphor to allow us to explore new and innovative technologies,
2. As an opportunity to encourage full participation by asking everyone to help in populating maps of the lakes and waterways of Canada with pictures, audio clips, video clips, stories and antedotes from anywhere they have been via canoe,
3. To promote this great wilderness activity and romance with the canoe that is vibrant amoung our modern-day voyageurs, and
4. To promote Canada as a vast and beautiful nation.

What is planned for the future?

We will be starting the pavilion as a website, allowing users to walk through the site with text brousers or graphical brousers. As more and more people submit their web pages, stories, and photos the pavilion will grow but it is to become more than a master website, it is to introduce new technologies to the web. Beyond the introduction of technology, it is also hoped that this pavilion can serve as an example of how information can be brought from a multitude of sources and presented as a cohesive unit.

How to join in

Anyone can submit information to the pavilion. Individuals, clubs, a business, even governments are welcome. We are trying to avoid rules and regulations but we will have to insist on a few.

1. Web Page Submissions:
   You can do this two ways. Either send us the URL and we will link to it, or you submit the page for us to hold on our system. If you are holding the pages and move them or decide that you don't want to be linked, let us know and we will take the appropriate action. If we are holding the pages and you want to change them, submit a new copy and we will replace the old. If you wish to have it removed, just tell us.
2. Photo Submissions:
   We will accept them in electronic form, slides, or prints. If you want the slide or print returned please send a self-addressed stamped envelope.
3. Language:
   We will accept submissions in English, French, or Both.
4. Fees:
   There is no fee to hold your submission on our system.
5. Destination:
   Please indicate which hall(s) in which you would like your submission to appear on. We can't guarantee that's where it will be placed but if the request is reasonable then it should be met.
6. Development of Web Pages:
   We do not make pages but..... If a text article is sent to us in plain text (straight ASCII, no formating characters) we will link it in as a text article.
7. Credits:
   Please tell us where, when, and by who any photos were taken. We can't accept photos or articles without giving credit where due.
8. Approval:
   We reserve the right to reject pages that may be considered offensive, inappropriate, or otherwise.

Sincerely,

Donald Haines
Canoe Pavillion Coordinator
Canadian Presence
1996 Internet World Exposition
Email donh@mars.dgrc.doc.ca

Surface mail:
Canoe Pavillion
Care of: Roy Gibbons
Executive Director, Canadian Organizing Committee
Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6