Venus Mill Documentation

The Venus Mill Conservation Project is a two-phase project led by the Yukon Government Historic Site Tourism and Culture with the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS). Recognized as a landmark heritage resource, the Venus Mill is an important industrial heritage site for its scientific value as an extant gravity-fed mill. The objective of Phase 1 is to develop a comprehensive historic record for posterity while considering Phase 2, which will focus on a digital storytelling platform for site interpretation and presentation.

Phase 1 focused on recording the as-found condition of the “Venus Mill: John Conrad's Jewel” Historic Site in southern Yukon. The site is recognized for its connection with the discovery of deposits of gold and silver in the nearby mountains, a development that briefly transformed the established town of Conrad into an early twentieth-century hard rock mining hub. The project included planning and implementation of the recording and mapping activities to produce measured records such as ortho-corrected images, floor plans, cross-sections and the elevations of the standing structures, topography, and character-defining elements (CDE) of the site at different scales. Additionally, the terrestrial and aerial photography were used to produce a high-resolution geo-located photographic record of all of the site´s CDEs. Digital panoramic photography was recorded onsite; it was taken from different areas at ground and aerial levels in strategic locations around the property, to be used in Phase 2 in developing the storytelling platform.