Reflection
I’ve never had the opportunity to travel along the Taku River. Having heard this story many times, I always wondered what these places looked like within a broader scope. I have seen maps, and I’ve seen pictures, but it still felt detached. When I came across Tour Builder through Google Earth I thought it’d be a great tool to make stories and history come alive in new ways. There were many aspects along the way that slowed down the process, and there are many potential improvements within the program itself, but overall I think building Google Earth tours can prove to be a useful tool within the class.
Overall, telling the story took much longer than anticipated. One reason it took so long was a desire to stay true and accurate to the dialect and orthography of the storyteller. Sèdayà is from the inland and her story was told in the inland dialect. Jeff Leer used the orthography most common to the inland. I am, however, much more familiar with the coastal Tlingit dialect and orthography. Although very similar, there are enough differences that each letter, down to the accent, had to be gone over to ensure accuracy. For example, coastal Tlingit only uses one accent mark (á for example), as opposed to three (á, à, and â). For example, Leer writes the Tlingit word for Taku as T’àkhú, whereas coastal orthography would write it as Taa’kú. Rather than attempt to translate the inland dialect into coastal orthography, it seemed more appropriate to keep the dialect and orthography as spoken by Sèdayà.
Another reason the story took longer was the limitations of the program itself. Although there are maps and pictures within the book and some of the locations were difficult to zero in on. Lkùdasêts'k Lèkachûxh'u, for example, is a small waterfall along the side of a cliff. The map points to a rough location, and a caption in one of the photographs also alludes to the location in a general sense, but getting an exact pinpoint location was difficult. Tour Builder itself did not allow for moving the view in different directions, at least in this location, likely due to a lack of available imagery of the area. If the story was located within a town I imagine this would not be the case.
Along similar lines, I thought it’d be more interesting to show the story from the river itself. Since most who travel the river do so in boat, getting the views from the river would have been more in line with the telling of the story than a view from space. Similarly, being able to go from one location to another through more than a straight line would have been helpful. For example, when transitioning from Juneau to Atlin, it would have been exciting, even at a high speed, to follow along the river as much as possible, rather than a straight line over the mountains.
Similarly, it’d be useful to be able to denote areas rather than specific drop points. Being able to highlight the lands of Taku Khwáan or the lands of the Yanyeidi clan, for instance, would have helped readers get a better grasp of the land. Merely a dropped point on the map does not do it justice. In this same fashion, denoting an entire mountain or a specific part of a mountain is equally difficult. As Tour Builder is still in beta, such features are not available.
I can easily imagine using this program with an entire class. Last year, before reading Things Fall Apart, we explored different cultures (the African and European cultures that were in conflict in the novel, as well as Alaskan cultures to connect the story to a local context). Being able to have different groups create a story map or tour to explore these cultures would help visualize the settings better. In the case of Nyman’s own life, this particular story is only the first story. The stories she follows up with build upon these locations, both referencing them and filling the rest of the land with stories. To map and tour the entire story of her life would truly make the Taku River come to life in a digital format within the classroom.
I’ve never had the opportunity to travel along the Taku River. Having heard this story many times, I always wondered what these places looked like within a broader scope. I have seen maps, and I’ve seen pictures, but it still felt detached. When I came across Tour Builder through Google Earth I thought it’d be a great tool to make stories and history come alive in new ways. There were many aspects along the way that slowed down the process, and there are many potential improvements within the program itself, but overall I think building Google Earth tours can prove to be a useful tool within the class.
Overall, telling the story took much longer than anticipated. One reason it took so long was a desire to stay true and accurate to the dialect and orthography of the storyteller. Sèdayà is from the inland and her story was told in the inland dialect. Jeff Leer used the orthography most common to the inland. I am, however, much more familiar with the coastal Tlingit dialect and orthography. Although very similar, there are enough differences that each letter, down to the accent, had to be gone over to ensure accuracy. For example, coastal Tlingit only uses one accent mark (á for example), as opposed to three (á, à, and â). For example, Leer writes the Tlingit word for Taku as T’àkhú, whereas coastal orthography would write it as Taa’kú. Rather than attempt to translate the inland dialect into coastal orthography, it seemed more appropriate to keep the dialect and orthography as spoken by Sèdayà.
Another reason the story took longer was the limitations of the program itself. Although there are maps and pictures within the book and some of the locations were difficult to zero in on. Lkùdasêts'k Lèkachûxh'u, for example, is a small waterfall along the side of a cliff. The map points to a rough location, and a caption in one of the photographs also alludes to the location in a general sense, but getting an exact pinpoint location was difficult. Tour Builder itself did not allow for moving the view in different directions, at least in this location, likely due to a lack of available imagery of the area. If the story was located within a town I imagine this would not be the case.
Along similar lines, I thought it’d be more interesting to show the story from the river itself. Since most who travel the river do so in boat, getting the views from the river would have been more in line with the telling of the story than a view from space. Similarly, being able to go from one location to another through more than a straight line would have been helpful. For example, when transitioning from Juneau to Atlin, it would have been exciting, even at a high speed, to follow along the river as much as possible, rather than a straight line over the mountains.
Similarly, it’d be useful to be able to denote areas rather than specific drop points. Being able to highlight the lands of Taku Khwáan or the lands of the Yanyeidi clan, for instance, would have helped readers get a better grasp of the land. Merely a dropped point on the map does not do it justice. In this same fashion, denoting an entire mountain or a specific part of a mountain is equally difficult. As Tour Builder is still in beta, such features are not available.
I can easily imagine using this program with an entire class. Last year, before reading Things Fall Apart, we explored different cultures (the African and European cultures that were in conflict in the novel, as well as Alaskan cultures to connect the story to a local context). Being able to have different groups create a story map or tour to explore these cultures would help visualize the settings better. In the case of Nyman’s own life, this particular story is only the first story. The stories she follows up with build upon these locations, both referencing them and filling the rest of the land with stories. To map and tour the entire story of her life would truly make the Taku River come to life in a digital format within the classroom.