First Nation's Mapping of Canada: Ochagach's 1730 Map

I wrote about an amazing 1762 map of Canada I found online. One of the things that fascinated me about that map, was a reference it had to Ochagach. Ochagach was a Cree "Indian" or First Nations person who drew a map to the west coast for La Vérendrye, the French explorer and fur trader.

There's a short bio of Ochagach here. As the bio explains, the route he proposed became essentially a crucial highway to the western parts of Canada used by fur traders. In the French context, it was the fur trade and desire for pelts that drive not only exploration, but settlement and expansion and shaped North America.

Ochagach's map is fascinating to look at and is available in "zoomable" form.

Remember, the first nations of Canada, as far as I know, had no written language or tradition of map-making. This was a person, who from his own mind, was able to prepare a map of Canada beginning at modern day Thunder Bay, Ontario and ending up somewhere beyond Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba. Today, that would be a car ride of over 1,000 KM.

Approximate start and finish points of the original route

This is quite a vast distance that Ochagach had good knowledge of, at a time when choices for transportation were a canoe or walking. 

The map shows what appear to be a series of lakes, connected by either short rivers or portages leading ultimately to lake "Ouinipigon" which could be either modern lake Winnipeg or lake Winnipegosis. The various lakes along the route are numbered. I don't know enough about the map to know if these are numbered to help a traveller count how far along they are, or whether it refers to the number of days it takes to reach a certain point.

I've seen the map  compared to the map for a subway system in that distances are somewhat reduced and the point of the map is to show a destination and tells you not very much about what goes on between the destinations. In this case, the subway "stops" seem to be the various lakes that you have to count off and traverse to get to where you're going.

There are some fascinating annotations on the map in French that are worth a closer look at. 

First, there are details like the ones in this image. Where there is a rare name given to a lake, as opposed to just a number, with an interesting annotation in French: "Lake of Tecacamcouey, of three days of walking". Basically, this map is explaining how long a portage needs to be made to get to this lake.

The image with the name of the destination lake, "Ouinipigon" is also shown with a similar annotation about three days of walking. This image also notes where the Assinibois people live, and says that the map was sketched by the "Cris" or Cree people.

Finally, this image shows the legend of the map. Crosses represent portages. A number of horizontal lines represent large portages, a single vertical line is a short portage and dots are rapids.

There is an interesting, and short article here, in French, about First Nation's cartography. One of the more interesting points it makes, is just how influential First Nations, in general, and Ochagach in particular, was to European map makers. The article cites Ochagach's map as being the necessary information needed by both Philippe Buache and Bellin to complete their maps (images below from Barry Lawrence Ruderman). The influence is clear from just a glance.

Bellin. The annotation in the top left reads, in French "We do not know if in these parts there is land or water"

Buache

Warsaw, 1845 from the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

I visited Warsaw, Poland, only once and only briefly, but that still qualified it for a map for my collection. I purchased this one somewhere in the United States (I can't remember where, exactly, but I want to say it was in Virginia or the Carolinas), it's an 1845 map of the city.

One of the things I love about this map, is the name of the publisher: the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

The group was essentially a politically linked organization in the U.K. who made it their aim to provide high-quality educational materials for people with no or limited access to learning materials. It started in the 1820s, and does not seem to have lasted very long, but apparently produced a number of high-quality maps.

The image of the map I posted here is not the best, but as always, David Rumsey has me covered. See here for his high-quality image of the same map.

Warsaw has gone through much destruction since 1845 when this map was published. I find it difficult to compare this antique map with the city today. Not least because of the choice of orientation of the map. For some reason, it shows north as being towards the right. I can't think of a good reason to have done this, other than to have it appear in "landscape" orientation on the page of an atlas more neatly. I don't know enough about its history to comment, so I'll limit myself to the things I find interesting about this map.

One change I will point out is something noticed by another blogger, who does not normally write about maps. This blog notes that one difference in the city was the reclaiming of land from the river Vistula in the early 20th century. It provides a bit more information on Warsaw than I have.

When looking at the image I posted above, the outskirts of the city look a bit blurry. This is not a result of bad photography. This seems to be an intentional visual effect on the map. I find that it has the result of focusing ones attention on the city itself, which is interesting. I don't know if that's what the map-maker was hoping to do with his choice of design, but it has a nice effect.

I also like how the map, though it is itself an antique, notes important historic elements of the city. For example, there is a border of the city from 1762 shown on the map. This older border is well within what appear to be the borders of the city at the time it was published. Perhaps someone out there with a better knowledge of Warsaw's history can explain to me why this was an important date.

The town of Praga, on the east bank of the Vistula, notes that it was burned in 1794 and 1831, just a few years before this map was produced. The 1794 burning was as a result of a Polish uprising against Russian rule over Poland. I'm less clear on the causes of the 1831 burning, but I suspect it may be linked to the battle of Olszynka Grochowska as part of the 1831 "November Uprising" or Polish-Russian war. Again, I hope there are people better versed in Polish history than I am out there who can explain this better to me.

The comparison of important buildings in the city along the bottom of the map is also quite charming. Only a small sample are shown in close-up here, but it's clear that these were well drawn, with attention to detail. They also seem to be presented in a formal sort of way, not as a decorative addition. It's a nice feature to add to a city map.

It's a shame that I don't know more about Poland to be able to write more about this map, but I hope someone out there will be able to read this, comment and provide more information. I look forward to learning more.

As a final point, I notice that the back of the map has a stamp on it that reads Devon & Exeter Institution. This is a library that still operates, and their website is here. It's unusual to know the provenance of an antique map, and so this is sort of interesting to know that at some point in its life, the map belonged to this institution. How it got to a store in the United States I cannot say, but this find has done some travelling to get to my home in Ottawa!

The Puzzle of the Map: Seven Bridges of Königsberg (today Kaliningrad)

I'm bad at math. Like, really bad. This is hard on my father who is a mathematician with the degrees to prove it. He keeps trying to get me interested in math, and his latest attempt is to tell me about the problem of the seven bridges of Königsberg, today Kaliningrad, Russia.

Here's the issue, and a colourful 1732 map of the city available for purchase here (as always no affiliation between me and the seller of any kind, simply giving credit where it's due), to help illustrate it.

As you can see, the city in 1732 had seven bridges, which I've highlighted in yellow. Residents used to like to play a game. They would try to take a stroll around the town attempting to cross each bridge exactly once and start and end in the same spot.

This is the point where you may want to take out a piece of paper and try to sketch this out on your own. 

Meanwhile, I can also show you this fabulous map of the city from sometime in the 1580's before the city's seventh bridge was built. This map is no longer for sale, as it was sold by Sanderus Antiquariat, as you can see here. It looks like if there were a seventh bridge on this map, it would be obscured by the couple standing in the foreground. 

WARNING

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON

One of the wonderful things about the beautiful map above, is that having six, instead of seven bridges, is basically the only way it would be (sort of) possible to accomplish this bridge-walking map puzzle. It's impossible to do it with seven bridges, and possible with six bridges if you end up somewhere other than where you've started, and this is where the math comes in.

My father suggested I write about this because of the famous mathematician Leonhard Euler. Euler essentially reduced the problem to a graph. Now, this is where my lack of mathematical knowledge shows, but from what I understand, you have to almost forget about the bridges for a moment, and imagine the various points or nodes you'll be going to. Looking at the map above, imagine for example that you start at the church on the central island, you can cross to the south bank of the river, use the other bridge to get you back to the central church, then cross to the north bank, walk along it to get back to the central church, cross to the orchard in the east, and then back up to the north bank.

Like this:

Euler explained that in order for the puzzle to work, each location, point or node (the central church, the north and south bank and the orchard, must have either exactly zero or two points of contact with each other. If there are more, and (I think) especially if it's an odd number, then it doesn't work. 

Anyway, I don't want to pretend to know anything about math, so I'll happy link to a few good sources of information about the puzzle. Here, here and of course, wikipedia, here.

Meanwhile, to soothe your frustration, enjoy these beautiful maps. They're really great.

1830 Map of Southern Africa

One of my favorite maps--despite my having not yet framed it to display--is my 1830 Malte-Brun map of Southern Africa. This is one of a couple of maps I've bought from the Pageant Print Shop (who, as always, I have no affiliation with) in New York City. It's the kind of map shop I love. The space is packed in every nook and cranny with maps, generally well organized, but still vague enough that you have to search for the treasure you're looking for. The owners have been in the business for a long time and know what they're talking about and the experience shopping there is really pretty great.

Back to the map! There are many interesting features of this map, but my favorite comes down to two words across the middle of the map. Take a look at the picture and see if you can guess them.

Can you guess? The words are "unknown regions". What's more thrilling than a map that shows vast areas that are simply unknown? What carries more mystery, mystique, adventure and possibility than blanks on a map?!

Indeed, in my mind, one of the greatest things about this map is the contrast between the areas that have considerable detail and the regions that have basically none. For example, Madagascar is quite well detailed as is the Cape Colony, the nucleus of modern day South Africa, but so much else is lacking.

As one may expect, most of the detail is on the coasts. The seeds of some modern day countries are visible, for example Angola, Congo, Somalia and Abyssinia, which is modern day Ethiopia are on this map. The detail about some of the various peoples and their regions is also fascinating, and I think would be even more interesting if one knew more about African history than I do.

I do know enough, however, to know that the Sudan or "Soodan" on this map, does not stretch all the way across Africa and that Guinea is a relatively small country located on the West coast of Africa, not a large region to the north of the Gulf of Guinea. Benin does seem to be in about the right place though. I also know enough to point out that one of the most well known groups in Africa, the Zulu, who had a burgeoning empire at the time this map was made, seem to be nowhere to be found.

Even the very little detail that does exist in the regions marked as unknown seems incorrect or incomplete, which is really no surprise. For example, compare the length of the Congo River, and it's connection to other major rivers in the region to the relatively puny depiction it gets in this map.

The Congo River and rivers it connects with

The map itself does not have original color, but was hand colored by someone after publication. My copy also has a couple of minor stains on it, which diminish its value slightly, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a gorgeous, fascinating map with some amazing detail. I can't wait to get it framed and on the wall.

Add it to the Wishlist: A Snapshot of North American History from 1762

I notice, as I build up my virtual wish-list, that many of the maps I'm choosing aren't from places I've been, but where I'm from, specifically Montreal, Quebec or Canada. That's why this 1762 map by Thomas Jefferys titled: "A Map of Canada and the North Part of Louisiana with the Adjacent Countrys [sic]" easily makes the list. The map is being offered for sale by Neatline Rare Maps of San Francisco for more money than I could ever hope to be able to afford to spend on a map!

Here's a picture of it:

I highly recommend visiting the Neatline site to get a much closer zoomable look at this map. Neatline has also provided a well researched background of the map and what it shows.

There are a couple of interesting points Neatline makes that are worth highlighting:

The reference to First Nations groups is interesting, not only in their identification on the map, but also in that part of this map seems to have been made possible by reports from a first nations explorer named Ochagach who himself produced a map useful for western exploration by the French. It's a significant detail that tends to be lost in more general pictures of first nations that we learn about in school.

The other is the map's "mythological" elements. To me, the coolest is the legend of Fou-Sang, shown on the west coast of the map. It's a place supposedly visited by the Chinese as far back as 219 BC. Wikipedia writes a bit more about it. It's a remarkable story, but may have been a popular myth at the time this map was made.

Finally, a few points that Neatline did not mention that are interesting to me, and possibly to most Canadians. For one, there was a New Britain and a New South Wales in Canada. These are not place names that are used today, and are now occupied by other provinces or territories in Canada. I had to do some searching on Wikipedia to learn a bit about their history. Especially interesting was that these place names were in use basically at the same time that Canada was being taken by force by the British from the French. It seems, therefore, that there was some, albeit sparse, English presence north of New France as well as to the south of it.

I also love the annotation to the east of Hudson's Bay that a supposed lake, which connect to the north Atlantic through Labrador and Northern Quebec was "very doubtful". I wonder why they even thought to put that there. What prompted the map-maker to think this possibly existed?

As a final point, this map gives a great sense of a moment in time in western expansion by the European powers. The eastern portions of the map are detailed, show political boundaries, towns and geological features and looks accurate to the modern viewer. As you look west, however, detail fades, gradually, until the vast blank expanse of the prairies and west coast. It goes to show, once more, that maps like this are historic snapshots.

Johnson's Upper and Lower Canada from 1863

There's a lot to love in these two maps of Upper and Lower Canada, parts of modern Ontario and Quebec, respectively as well as New Brunswick and bits of the United States. The maps come from Johnson's Atlas.

This map is an attractive one. It has a nice border, nice coloring (which I assume was done later and is probably not original), and that wonderful quality of spilling outside its borders. The map I have was taken from an atlas, and you can see the different page numbers and how the maps appeared. It's curious to have shown them this way, since the maps present contiguous regions, and it's not obvious why they wouldn't have been oriented differently to show one map that folds in half. This question becomes even more interesting when you consider that the two maps have only one legend, suggesting that they are meant to be viewed together.


The detail on the map is wonderful too. The counties/townships are noted in great detail, even though these sorts of geographic divisions are rarely used in any significant way in Canada these days. The seller of the map noted in the margin that this map is from 1863, which is before Canadian confederation. It is also just before Ottawa became the capital of Canada (1866) and at a time when Quebec City was the capital. Quebec is noted with a red dot on the map.

   The map shows a number of important rail lines, many canals and has three great insets, one of Montreal, one of the important Welland Canal and another of Wolf Island on the border of the United States. Wolf Island is noted as the start of the St. Lawrence river, and the inset shows a charming collection of buildings on the site of the town of Kingston, Upper Canada, a very important town at the time.

The Welland Canal, which was an important shipping route at the time that helped bypass Niagara Falls also gets its own inset, as does Montreal. Montreal's inset does not show much detail about the city, but identifies important towns on the island, shows the, now scenic, Lachine Canal, the historic Grand Trunk Railway, and has good detail about the surrounding region. At the bottom of the image of the Montreal inset, two different meridians are shown, one from Greenwich, and another from Washington.

 It's also interesting that while today Toronto is not only the largest city in Canada, but one of the top 5 in North America, on this map, it does not merit its own inset, though features which are today much less significant do draw that kind of attention from the map-makers.

Wishlist Map: 5 Things About Montreal You Probably Never Knew

Next up on my wishlist: Bellin's Carte de L'Isle De Montreal et de Ses Environs (Map of the Island of Montreal and its Surroundings) from 1744. This map is available for purchase here, from Arader Galleries (who I have no affiliation or relationship with).

It seems typical of Bellin to show geographic features on his map, but to minimize man made elements. According to wikipedia, at the time this map was made, some 22,000 people lived in Montreal, yet the map does not make this obvious.

Here are five awesome facts about Montreal that we can learn from this map that probably all but the most die-hard Montrealers never knew.

1) Lachine was an island: Today Montrealers are familiar with the neighborhood of Lachine and the Lachine canal that borders it. The canal was built to bypass the rapids shown on the map (the "sault"). The Canal, however, was not all a new waterway. Instead, it was an expansion of Lac St. Pierre that was already separating Lachine from the rest of Montreal.

2) Yes, they really called it "La Chine" (China): La Chine, which evolved into the modern Lachine, was originally a derisive nickname. The explorer La Salle believed that China lay just beyond the impassible rapids upstream of Montreal. Of course it didn't, and what he returned to his home in Lachine from his failed efforts to reach China, he and his companions were mockingly called "Chinese".

3) Forts, forts, forts! There were forts all over the island of Montreal. It would be interesting for a real Montreal historian (i.e. not me) to indicate if any of these still exist, but there were lots of them. I see a fort Roland, fort De La Chine, even a fort Pointe Claire: today an important suburb of the city.

4) The island was crisscrossed by streams. This is not obvious in present day Montreal, and some of these have even been filled in. A modern map of the city, especially in the downtown area, shows no sign of some of the waterways on the map in 1744.

Downtown Montreal today. No streams.

5) Windmills. The city was dotted with them, and they help emphasize the rural nature of the city at the time. Windmills would have been an important part of rural life in the 18th century. There are only a handful of these left today, including the one in Pointe Claire. 

Pittsburgh in 1795 and 1876 and Forts!

My wife and I took a great road-trip from Washington D.C. to Pittsburgh where I stopped in at Shaw Galleries for some map shopping. I ended up buying what I think is the only reproduction in my collection, and yet, it's older than some of the originals I have.

This map shows a plan of Pittsburgh, and its fort from 1795. This, map, however, is almost 100 years more recent than the time it depicts. From what I can find, this map was published by Samuel W. Durant in the 1876 "History of Allegheny Co. Pennsylvania". It is a reproduction of the original map, which I'm pretty sure is this one, held in the University of Pittsburgh library's digital collection:

 The original is quite handsome, but the reproduction has a few interesting features. Forts are always fascinating, and this map provides considerable detail on the Fort at Pittsburgh. Today not much is left of the original fortification built by the British (on the site of an earlier French fort.)

In showing this fort the map almost reveals a kind of self-awareness, that is to say that the map-maker knew that his was a new vision of the city, but that there was a long history before him. The inset shows not only where the previous French fort had been, but also the site of a much smaller frontier fort (itself shown in another inset), but it also shows where roads have since been built passing through and over the site of an important historic feature that no longer exists.

The map also shows a number of Islands in the rivers around the city, including this one with the (in my opinion) charming notation "buckwheat grown in 1795". I note that this remark also seems to appear on the original 1795 map.

I notice, however, that this map shows a number of islands that seem to no longer exist. This well researched piece explains what happened to the islands, which was in most cases erosion. It makes the map even more wonderful as it shows not only man-made change and development over time but also natural changes to the geographic features of the area. Sure enough, a glance at a modern map of the same area shows no islands in the river at all; just bridges, lots and lots of bridges.

Add it to the Wishlist: 1780 Harrison Antique Map of The St Lawrence River, Canada

I've never seen a map quite like this before.

This is a map of the St. Lawrence river, produced in 1780, and drawn from an earlier map, by a different cartographer, i.e. not Harrison, who published this one. It's featured, and on sale, here.

There's something starkly beautiful about this map. The whole length of the river, diagonally cutting across the map, the lack of any features other than those directly along the water, the blankness of the remainder of the map. It's quite stunning, really.

The map also appeals to me because it features some places I know well, but in a way I've never seen before. They are almost presented without context. Yes there is latitude and longitude, but if you had never heard of the river, or the cities on it, you would have no idea where in the world it was.

Below, I've posted images of some of my favorite features of the map. First though, I did some research on the Duke of Orleans, who commissioned the map off of which this map was based. In 1780, he was a man named Louis Philippe d'Orléans known as le Gros (the Fat). It seems he was a military man, but also, in his later years, a patron of the arts and sciences. Wikipedia lists a number of well known artists and scientists he was close with. Cartographers don't feature in this list, but it would seem reasonable that such a man would have an interest in such things. It would be interesting to hear from someone with more knowledge of this man, or of this map, why the St. Lawrence river, in particular was commissioned.

I also looked up the original map maker. D'anville. It seems that what distinguishes him so much from his contemporaries, is his willingness to leave blank spaces he knew little or less about. This seems to be the case here, but the result is fascinating and magnificent.

Scroll down for some more close-ups of this latest addition to my map wishlist.

The beautiful "Thousand Islands" region in Ontario, on the Canada-U.S. border.

A somewhat distorted view of Montreal. Note St. Anne, on the Island of Montreal. Today a beautiful suburb of the city.

Quebec City, and the mouth of the river. Interesting here is the great detail of smaller tributaries of the river.