Scheduling Your Work Your work is part research and part fieldwork, ideally spread over the entire year. Plan to do the research during the winter months. The initial watercourse field survey should be done in the spring when the water is high. Rehabilitation and enhancement can take place during the summer and fall. 7.1. The Past and Present (Initial Research) Before you begin rehabilitation you must understand the problems. To properly understand the problems, you should have a good sense of the watercourse's history. Start by finding or making a simple map of the area where you plan to work. Make sure you include smaller streams (tributaries) entering the main watercourse. Existing 1:10,000 orthophoto maps of the area can be very useful. (These can be obtained from Service Nova Scotia http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/land/products/geobase.asp Where to Go For Help). Be sure to make several copies of your hand-drawn map as it will be used later for different activities. In this exercise you develop different maps showing how the watercourse has changed over time, and how it looks now. To understand the "past" and "present" of your watercourse, you should be able to answer four basic research questions: 1. What was it like in the past? 2. What changed it? 3. What is it like now? 4. What is changing it now? You can answer the first two research questions by: - Talking to older members of the community, especially fishermen and landowners; this is an exercise in "oral history". - Searching libraries and archives for photos, books, letters, maps and other printed information. - Checking relevant government departments for any records or maps they may have that show your watercourse.