The Ipperwash Beach Walk
Master of Design
2016
Monica Virtue
Digital Futures
OCAD University

This thesis project uses geo-location to deliver documentary media and interactive visualizations to mobile users during an embodied “beach walk” along a disputed strip of land on Lake Huron. As users travel an historic trail between two Indigenous communities, crossing a series of GPS points along the water’s edge, they will learn via smartphone how settlers colonized Ipperwash Beach. The content is delivered through a mobile platform designed specifically to tell stories. The project is a form of counter-mapping which presents an alternate viewpoint to mainstream notions about how Ipperwash Beach became a vacation destination. Created through the use of co-design methods, the project is intended to benefit the Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation through a sharing of original archival research, an opportunity to improve relationships with non-Indigenous neighbours, and a value-added experience for the carloads of tourists who visit each summer.

Keywords: storytelling, counter-mapping, mobile locative media, documentary, data visualization, embodiment, co-design, Indigenous, colonization, Ipperwash