Turning a Forgotten Geological Heritage into a Geological Park: Developing Stonehammer Geopark

Abstract

Stonehammer Geopark, North America’s first member of the Global Geoparks Network, developed in a region with a long history of geological exploration and a tradition of public education in the geosciences. The remarkable geological complexity centred on the city of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, nurtured a homegrown group of professional and amateur geologists in the early 1800s. Many became internationally known for their work, and the institutions they created were at the forefront of research and public education from the middle nineteenth to early twentieth century. By the 1920s, it had mostly disappeared from the community. By the end of the twentieth century, geoscience heritage was largely a forgotten part of the community’s understanding of its past. The creation of a global geopark has brought stories of the region’s geology back to the public attention by providing geological interpretation of existing parks and trails that had originally developed largely because of the scenic geology. Storytelling, bolstered by researching the lives and contributions of those people in the community who made the geology internationally known, is seen as an important part of reviving a community sense of its geoscience heritage.