How does BC sound during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Photo by Bill Eager. Syilx/Okanagan Nation Territory.

What does the world sound like with less traffic on the road and fewer people gathering together? Two anthropologists were inspired to find out.

UVic’s Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier and UBC-Okanagan’s Sue Frohlick launched an open collection of sounds from BC during the pandemic. They hope to gather recordings from everywhere in the province to capture this moment in history.

Maybe our impressions of the world we live in are different because sounds have changed—not just in intensity, but in diversity too.

“We’re looking for raw sound clips of a place, an event and/or clips that include your own reflections and feelings about a sonic experience in BC,” says Boudreault-Fournier.

“Eventually we’ll create a map on the website to mark the places where the sounds were created,” adds Frohlick, “so we invite people to help us cover the province’s expansive geography.”

Listen to some sounds from Victoria below, and upload your sounds to the BC COVID-19 Soundwaves website.