Where Is Here?
Canada's Maps and the Stories They Tell
We Canadians love our maps. Like our settler forebears, we study maps to gain a measure of control over our vast land. And we reimagine them in art, songs and stone to build a richer appreciation of our world. As literary critic Northrop Frye once wrote, Canadians are bedevilled not by the question Who am I? but by the riddle Where Is Here?
In Where Is Here?, Alan Morantz introduces us to the maps that made Canada and, along the way, made us Canadians. Our maps are nothing less than mirrors of our hopes, dreams, prejudices and assumptions. They show us at our best, and at our worst. They tell the story of Canada. Click here to read more about the book.
When you imagine a map, what does it look like? A conventional topographical outline, drawn to scale, with place names clearly marked, bodies of water shaded in blue and political boundaries neatly outlined? Although such a map has its uses, it's merely one of many kinds of map Canadians have used over the centuries to define and understand the land they inhabit. To see examples of some unconventional maps, click on the images below.
In the early 20th century, the hobo was a familiar figure in North America, particularly on the Pacific coast. Migrating from place to place in search of work, taking shelter where they could, hoboes developed a system of simple chalk drawings that mapped areas of danger and refuge. Collected by Bart Campbell, who has compiled a fascinating oral history of hobo culture, the drawings were, he says, "living, associate map keys for orienteering in strange places." Click on a message below to see the hobo mapping sign to which it belongs.
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