Success Stories

Les Jardins de Métis: Portrait of a landscape

Digital Collections presents one of North America's best documented historical gardens

Les Jardins de Métis web site displays 100 photographs of Canada's great historic garden situated at the confluence of the Métis and St-Lawrence rivers. The gardens were created by Elsie Reford (1872-1967) at Estevan House, her family's summer residence.

Complementing Mrs. Reford's landscaping abilities are her husband's black and white photographs. Dating from the first half of the century, the photographs capture the gardens' rare flora and picturesque scenes. The Reford archives include over 5000 photographs of the gardens as they evolved and an equally impressive number of manuscripts written by Mrs. Reford. A dedicated writer, Elsie Reford wrote approximately 6000 pages of letters, diaries, books and gardener's notebooks.

Les Jardins de Métis web site was done under contract with SchoolNet Digital Collections, an Industry Canada initiative. The Digital Collections program, funded by the federal Youth Employment Strategy, has enabled over 1400 young Canadians (ages 15-30) to gain valuable work experience in the multimedia sector. By converting significant Canadian content for display on the Information Highway, Canadian youth have not only gained skills for knowledge-based employment but have provided greater access to Canadian holdings located in archives, libraries, museums, associations and other sources.

In collaboration with 5 students from the Cégep de Matane, Mr. Alexander Reford, Elsie Reford's great-grandson and director of the historical gardens, carefully chose 100 photographs for the web site. The students were beginning a three-year new media program, a first of its kind at the Cégep, which provided them with the necessary technical training.

When the students began the project, they were starting at ground zero. They had little or no knowledge of web design, nor had they ever been part of such a vast production. Selecting the appropriate photographs with the accompanying text from the thousands of holdings was a task in itself. Making the site completely bilingual was another challenge. Finally, the team had to devise a design scheme that would give the black and white photographs a new vivacity and energy. After all, the Internet is a highly explosive, colourful and interactive media. Although incredibly interesting and captivating on their own, black and white pictures from the turn of the century are unlikely to be ideal web imagery. With this in mind, the team attempted to recreate an old photo album aesthetic. They added a light yellow background to complement the burnt sienna photographs and produced simple graphics to accentuate the overall design of the web site.

Their design scheme was a success. The students produced a most elegant and sophisticated web site that reflects the gardens' spirit as well as the grandeur and prestige of Estevan House. The texts and photographs best exemplify Mrs. Elsie Reford, portraying her as an ambitious, active and unconventional woman. She enjoyed traditional male activities such as fishing and hunting yet produced the most luxurious gardens and religiously documented their bloom in diaries and letters.

For the students, taking part of such an elaborate project so early in their new media program gave them a sense of accomplishment. Indeed, they are very proud of their project. Not only did they learn about time management, team work, web design and editing, they also "learned a great deal about their region and their own history," exclaims Mr. Reford.

Thanks to the Digital Collections program, les Jardins de Métis now offers this enchanting collection to other Canadians. "[Digitizing our collection] has opened a window to the world that we didn't have before. Now, one of the largest historical garden photo collection in North America can be easily [visited]," explains Mr. Reford.

Mr. Reford describes the experience of working with the youth as a "very positive and wonderful experience. We're thrilled that the Cégep de Matane and Les Jardins de Métis can continue to collaborate on projects together." Mr. Reford is already planning to digitize additional holdings of his collection in conjunction with the Cégep.

Visit the SchoolNet Digital Collections World Wide Web Site at http://collections.ic.gc.ca/