John Warkentin

The Development of Geographical Study in Canada, 1870–2000

Across northern North America aboriginal people had an astute knowledge of their land, and European explorers from the early 16th century to the end of the 19th depended on aboriginals to be guided over land and on water from the Atlantic seaboard, progressing in stages to the shores of the Pacific and Arctic oceans. Aboriginals even drew maps for Europeans. Fur traders especially built up an extensive knowledge of the land. In the 1840s, for example, David Thompson, distinguished surveyor and trader, wrote a description of the country from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean, first published in 1916, that is now recognized as one of the finest regional geographies ever written on any part of North America (Thompson 1962). In the North reconnaissance explorations were undertaken by British naval men seeking the Northwest Passage, and they prepared valuable reports of natural features. Canada’s premier scientific organization of the 19th century, the Geological Survey of Canada, was founded in 1841. After Canadian Confederation in 1867 its field of operations covered all of northern North America except, of course, Alaska and Greenland (Zaslow 1975). Slowly, and in many different ways, a rudimentary but sound factual information base on Canada accumulated. An unconscious grace and intelligence infuses much of this early geographical writing; the geography emerges from the unforced flow of narratives describing new areas experienced through hard travelling and seen through fresh eyes.

Terra Nostra, 1550-1950: The Stories behind Canada's Maps (review)

For some years I’ve made it a practice to regularly scan the new publications section of my university’s map library. With new technologies, and with printing usually done off-shore, it is astonishing how many atlases, often focused on facsimiles of old maps and covering a wide range of themes, are produced. Their quality is high, and Terra Nostra, 1550–1950 is an exemplary instance. We would expect no less, because the atlas is published in cooperation with Library and Archives Canada and celebrates its collection of 1.7 million maps, charts, and plans on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Canada’s first national atlas. Through numerous selected printed maps, reproduced vividly in colour here in Canada by Friesens of Altona, Manitoba, and using occasional old black-and-white illustrations, Library and Archives Canada senior archivist Jeffrey Murray investigates about a dozen themes in Canada’s development. There is always a purpose behind a map, and the reasons for making maps change over time as society changes. Murray presents these stories astutely. Together, his essays and the maps portray the crossing of the North American continent, the settlement of the West, the search for gold in the Klondike, county topographic maps, bird’s-eye views and fire insurance maps of cities, the development of motoring maps, battlefield maps, and other themes. Two extraordinary examples of cartographic art are given special consideration, both of the eighteenth century. One is the mapping of the St Lawrence by General James Murray, the other the charting of the eastern seaboard by J.F.W. Des Barres. We are also shown a double-page spread of Joseph Bouchette’s early-nineteenth-century map of Lower Canada, which has fine topographic detail. Short, clear accounts of changes in the technology of printing maps, illustrated by black-andwhite historical illustrations, are also included. In the brief space available in this wide-ranging atlas the reproduction of maps is given priority, and the accompanying accounts are vignettes, but Murray is in full command of this material and explains the origin and significance of the maps succinctly and lucidly. Highlights, beyond the maps already referred to, include Aaron Arrowsmith’s 1802 map that shows Samuel Hearne’s and Alexander Mackenzie’s contributions to mapping North America, and G.R. Parkin’s flamboyant 1893 map displaying Canada as the linchpin of the British Empire, all colonies coloured red as in the pervasive Canadian school wall maps of former years, with steamship lines tying the empire together. We see a wonderful 1900 bird’s-eye panorama of the Niagara River not only 202 letters in canada 2006