They would not take me there
To commemorate the 400th anniversaries of French explorer Samuel Champlain’s founding of Québec and naming of Lake Champlain, the Canadian American Center at the University of Maine released a new narrative map detailing the 13 years the 17th-century cartographer traveled throughout the St. Lawrence River valley in search of the elusive Northwest Passage.
The nearly 40-inch by 60-inch bilingual map, titled “They Would Not Take Me There: People, Places, and Stories from Champlain’s Travels in Canada, 1603-1616,” was developed by Michael Hermann, senior cartographer at the Canadian American Center, and Margaret Pearce, assistant professor of geography at Ohio University. UMaine professor of French Raymond Pelletier, associate director of the Canadian American Center, provided translation.
The map, which is based on Champlain’s published journals, features excerpts written by the adventurer, indigenous place names and extensive narrative details of the five locations where Champlain spent long periods of time – Tadoussac, Québec, Montréal, Morrison Island and the Penetanguishene Peninsula.
This spring, the map won a third place national award in the thematic category in Cartography and Geographic Information Society’s 36th Annual Map Design Competition.
