Indigenous Map of Southern Ontario

Christi Belcourt is a Metis artist who "indigenized" the regional maps and surveys of Albert Salter into a map called "Good Land". 

One side of the map has the English text that most people are familiar with, while the other side uses indigenous place names and commentary.

This level of commentary can be seen in this zoomed in image showing Toronto and areas to the north. Highway 401, running along Lake Ontario is described as a graveyard for animals.

It would be nice to have a higher resolution version where the legend can be read but I can’t find one the Decolonial Atlas or on Belcourt’s web site.

The map title comes from Salters use of the term "good land" repeatedly on his map of the north shore of Lake Huron.

via UWM Libraries

More about the "Good Land" map can be seen on the Decolonial Atlas.

Monochrome Mapping

Cartographer Daniel Huffman hosted a monochrome mapping competition on his blog. He posted the results yesterday. Keep in mind that monochrome does not necessarily mean black and white. It refers to two colors, usually a foreground color (often black) and a background color (often white) with shades (ie. grays) of in between color. In the case below the foreground color is green with a pink-ish background.

Sarah Bell - Inland Northwest Washington Art Deco Map

Here are some of my favorites. Click on them to see the maps in their entirety.

Ireland by Alex Hotchkin. Some of the details are a bit fanciful and I'm not sure what those stone (?) formations are north and west of Belfast. Here is a bit of the southwest.

For a more computer produced but still beautiful look here is an Appalachian Trail fold out shelter map by John Nelson and Erich Rainville using a blue-white color scheme.

Here is a map of Iturup, one of the Kuril Islands by Heather Smith. The hand drawn topographic shading is particularly nice.

A flow map of the Grand River in Ontario by Warren Davison done blueprint style.

Finally this brown (bistre) and black map of Alaska's Tongass National Forest by Evan Applegate, Matt Strieby, Aiyana Udesen, and Ezra Butt.

The map faeturse a diagram of the trees of the area at the bottom,

and this nicely done locator map, accompanied by colorful text such as "glaciers hemorrhaging water so blue it hurts your teeth to even look upon't...." It also contains a plea to "write some checks" to prevent the "moribund timber industry" from knocking down more of the old growth forest.

Other highlights include a stunning relief map of Peru, a hand drawn historic map of Paris and a "wealth topography" of LA. To see the full range of maps go here.

Message in a Bottle

This map appeared in my inbox a while back and now I can't seem to find any reference to it online.

If you put a message in a bottle, who will find it? The map is credited to the Weather Bureau of the USDA and shows "bottle paper courses" from 1892 and 1893. The legend is cut off but I think that the blue lines are from 1892 and the red from 1893. Either the weather bureau actually placed bottles and then retrieved them or this is just some theoretical map based on currents.

Almost all of the bottles travel eastward, with the flow of the St Lawrence Seaway. However the ones placed near shore in the Toronto area get caught in a counterflow that takes them to the west before heading south and then back to the east.

If anyone has additional information about this unusual map I'd love to know more.

Canada's 1955 future

Macleans magazine bought this map from the Canadian government. It is from 1955 and details "100 Important New Resources That Will Help Make Canada's Future Bright And Prosperous" - 1950's booster-ism at its finest.

Here is a close-up view showing details such as petro-chemical and nickel leaching plants near Edmonton, a nationwide microwave net for TV, far-reaching rural electrification, gas turbine locomotives and a money tug of war with the United States.  

Sample text from the title block

"Yesterday many of the places shown here were barren rock, desolate tundra or virgin forest. Tomorrow they will pour out a swelling flood of nearly all the materials needed by modern man...."

I'm not sure if the colors (green, yellow and red-ish) mean anything (elevation?) or if that's just an artistic effect. Also, the leaf-like channels within the Great Lakes are a strange touch.

The Macleans article has a nice selection of items from the map showing which predictions were good (tar sands oil) and which were overly optimistic (potash.) Some other interesting items not covered in the article:

• "Flying laboratory” carries ½ ton of electronic equipment in simultaneous search for many minerals.
• Latest rust-resistant wheat developed at government lab in Fort Garry, Man.
• Continent’s first turbo-prop airline service.
• 2,250-mile gas pipeline from Alberta to Toronto-Montreal at cost of $300 million.
• 19 new river valley conservation programs in Ontario.
• $60 million for world’s largest transatlantic telephone cable built by Canada, U.S.A., U.K.
• Atomic reactor at Chalk River for research into peaceful uses of atomic energy.

 I included that last item because I spent time in Chalk River as a graduate student and got to know some of the nuclear plant workers.

A complete list of all 100 resources can be found here, while a larger version of the map is here.

R.I.P. Roger Tomlinson

Roger Tomlinson, the "Father of GIS" passed away last week. He developed the Canada Geographic Information System, the world's first computerized GIS.

Working as a government consultant for Canada in the early 1960's, he was asked to find a location for planting trees in Kenya to feed a paper mill. The location needed a suitable slope, appropriate weather conditions, and access to transportation. The location would need to be free of monkeys, which eat young trees, and away from elephant migration routes. The creation and manual overlay of this many maps made the labor cost too high for the client. Tomlinson began to think about how to put these maps on a computer and generate numbers to measure land suitability.

He brought this idea to several computer companies but they were not interested. In 1962 he met Lee Pratt, head of the Canada Land Inventory, on an airplane. Pratt was looking to generate land use maps for the country to determine suitable areas for agriculture, forestry and wildlife over a million-plus square mile area. Tomlinson published a feasibility study for computerizing overlays and was subsequently asked to join the government in developing its Geographic Information System.

Printed maps from the Canada Land Survey can be accessed online at the Canadian Soil Information Service. The map above is of forestry capability in British Columbia. The green areas (in this case the lowlands) have the most capability while the oranges and pinks are less suitable. Below is a 1967 agricultural soil capability map for the area around Ottawa, where the map was produced. Orange areas are the best, green areas have severe limitations and pink areas are unsuitable.   

Much of the information above came from Putting Canada on the Map by Lynn Greiner, published in the Globe and Mail.

Speaking of April Fools...

On a recent Air Canada flight I got to see a little Canadian TV, specifically This Hour Has 22 Minutes. They like to make fun of Toronto mayor Rob Ford who has a long history of saying dumb things. On a recent visit to Chicago someone told him they'd been to the part of Canada "across from Detroit" and Ford responded "Oh, Manitoba!" Actually Rob, it's your own province! 22 Minutes had a little map fun at his expense. Here is a screen shot of the Rob Ford's map of Canada via the Torontoist.

Paddle-to-the-Sea is on Google Earth!

 

A young Indian boy carves a little canoe with a figure inside and names him Paddle-to-the-Sea. Paddle's journey, in text and pictures, through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean provides an excellent geographic and historical picture of the region.

When I was in school one of the teachers showed us the movie version of Paddle-to-the-Sea. At first I thought it was kind of dumb watching a kid carve a canoe and I probably wasn't paying complete attention. Then suddenly, the canoe slid down the hill and into the river and began its journey. I was transfixed and transformed and all those other cliches. Ever since then the movie has had a powerful hold on my imagination, though not in the forefront of my mind until I found out that you can see it in Google Earth.

The COSEE Great Lakes web site allows you to download a kml file and explore it, chapter by chapter. Here are the beginning chapters from the Nipigon River region of Ontario.

Paddle the enters Lake Superior. After heading the wrong way and getting stranded on beaches and marshes, it eventually finds its way to the Soo Locks with the help of a dog sled.

After a detour through Lake Michigan, it ends up in the lower Great Lakes where it tumbles over Niagara Falls and into the St Lawrence Seaway.

Finally reaching the Atlantic it gets caught by a French fishing boat and brought to France.

The book itself is worth re-reading or even purchasing. I took a nicely worn copy of it out of the library. Here is an image of the main map from the book taken from SecretPlans.

In addition to the geography lessons, the book also diagrams a sawmill, a canal lock, a lake freighter and several other industrial processes that take place in the Great Lakes region. It also has diagrams that morph the lakes into recognizable shapes long before morphing became fashionable. Lake Superior is morphed into a wolf's head, while Huron becomes a trapper carrying a pack of furs.The maps also show the birthplace of the Dionne Quintuplets - this must have been a big story for the pre-octomom era. 

The War of 1812 Board Game

A good way to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 is by playing the board game.
This is the map board

From the Columbia Games Web Page:

War of 1812 is an elegant strategy wargame depicting the Anglo-American struggle to control the Great Lakes and Canada.
War of 1812 sets up in five minutes and plays in 1-2 hours. This classic game has been enjoyed by thousands of gamers for over 30 years.
Unit types in this edition include artillery, cavalry, infantry, and navies. The map board is unchanged from previous editions.

This page also has a good summary of the war, mostly a listing of failed campaigns by both sides and the partial destruction of cities such as Buffalo, Toronto and Washington. The game strategy much like the war's is to concentrate your forces on one or two of the four Great Lakes fronts (Detroit, Niagara, Kingston and Lake Champlain) and attack early (in 1812-13) before the Napoleonic wars abroad wind down and the British forces receive major reinforcements. If you play the British side, try to hold out in a defensive posture until those extra forces arrive.

Here are some close up images from the board. The first one highlights Sacket's Harbor, New York where American naval forces were concentrated and where two attacks by the British were successfully repulsed.

Here is the western frontier where the war began with American forces crossing the Detroit River and invading Canada. British forces responded by driving them back and then surrounding Detroit.

These are the labels you stick on the wooden blocks to indicate who is where.

In the long run nothing really changed. Both Americans and Canadians decided that they were victorious. In the game version whoever can control the lakes and/or Quebec can rewrite history.

Canadians Are Not Themselves Today

Partners for Mental Health, a Canadian charity has introduced the Not Myself Today campaign. They want to get Canadians to sign a pledge of support for mental health and encourage them to talk openly about it. Part of the campaign is a crowd sourced mood map.

Each town or city is color coded by the the most predominant mood. When I first grabbed this screen shot Montreal was a nice calm blue though a large percentage of the respondents were also anxious or confused. Today the mood seems to have soured a bit, perhaps because of the gloomy weather? Montreal is anxious, Laval is irritated, St. Jean Sur Richelieu is confused, Mirabel is completely depressed while St. Jerome is sad, depressed and empty. On the bright side Pointe Claire is okay and Chateauguay is hopeful.

White means happy. Unfortunately there's not a lot of white but Pembroke's doing OK and Woodlawn is mostly happy though a bit stressed.

I assume the circle size represents the number of responses but they don't actually say that. It would be interesting to see if the moods correlate with weather but today is not a good day for that as it seems the entire country is cloudy. Hopefully this mapping project will help people feel better about themselves. Try to have a Selkirk, Manitoba kind of day!

Map of the Week - QSL Card Maps

QSL (Query Station Location) cards are postcards sent by amateur radio operators to verify station reception. The cards provide a visual identity for radio operators and are popular collectibles. Garth Hamilton, operator of station VE3HO in Fonthill, Ontario creates map based QSL cards for other operators. Here are some examples:

Here's his own card.

Maps in Unexpected Places - Part 1

This is the first of an occasional series highlighting maps in, you know, unexpected places. I saw this map of the Underground Railroad on a U-Haul truck this morning.

You can see all the states and Canadian provinces at U-Haul's online super graphics page.

Other map oriented truck graphics include North Dakota...

...and one of my personal favorites, Pennsylvania.

The "Did you know..." texts from these images:

Ontario: Abolishing slavery decades earlier than the U.S., Canada became a haven for enslaved people seeking freedom. How did "conductors" assist thousands?

North Dakota: Flags of the U.S., Mexico & Canada fly at the monument of the geographic center of North America in Rugby.

Pennsylvania: With President Jefferson's instructions in hand, the Lewis and Clark Expedition set sail down the Ohio River. What role did Philadelphia and Lancaster play in the tireless preparations undertaken for this journey? 

MOTW #58

In honor of New Year's Eve I had posted an interactive Guy Lombardo map of London, Ontario showing all the sites related to his life growing up there. There were lots of amusing and somewhat violent stories attached to the various places he lived and played music. Sadly, the map seems to have disappeared from cyberspace.