UofA Map/GIS Librarian
@wyman10.bsky.social
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William C. Wonders Map Collection, University of Alberta Library. Curation by Wyman Laliberté (he/him) (settler on Treaty 6 land).
WCW Map Collection on Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/wcw
#spatial #maps #cartography #gis #qgis
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![[image] from Chapter 44. The Chart
Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. The Modern Library (published by Random House) 1930.
[quote] ... you would have seen him intently study the various lines and shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank. page 282 .](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreibub236xbib44gqmnhjy5j7et5nwcdfuukxc6vxm7rqcwisuqawha@jpeg)
![[image of a journal article]
Nègre, Julien. (2022). The World in a Footnote: Examining Ahab’s Chart in Chapter 44 of Moby-Dick. Miranda. No. 26 Melville’s Measures. https://doi.org/10.4000/miranda.47428
Abstract:
Chapter 44 of Moby-Dick (“The Chart”) includes a footnote comparing Ahab’s plan to track Moby Dick across the globe with Matthew F. Maury’s efforts to chart the winds and currents of the oceans and produce an accurate “whale chart.” This article unpacks the effects produced by the addition of the footnote in the chapter and uses it as a starting point for examining Ahab’s charts and discussing the interactions between map and text. At first sight, Maury’s chart is used as a stable reference point that reinforces the verisimilitude of Ahab’s plan. A comparison of Ahab’s use of nautical charts with actual documents used by whaling captains, though, reveals a disjunction between his cartographic ratiocinations and Maury’s work. Yet the most significant detail in the footnote might be the fact that Maury’s chart is “in course of completion”: far from being a definite document that the text can rely on to bolster the plausibility of Ahab’s method, the chart remains unseen—and even unseeable, since the version described in the footnote was never produced in reality. The “deictic” gesture performed by the footnote duplicates Ahab’s yearning for an object that constantly eludes him.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreibo5qzjfvyls32jfpxgfw456vrtepihckzzoz3hr4ppslhopesytu@jpeg)
![[still] of Ahab (Gregory Peck) pointing at Bikini Atoll from the 1956 film Moby Dick. The Chart scene is a great introduction to GIS.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreidpmyft5giwgwz2mz4sndoi6ucupvlvdh4yann2ww4bdpswhopgxy@jpeg)
Reposted by UofA Map/GIS Librarian
Reposted by UofA Map/GIS Librarian
Reposted by UofA Map/GIS Librarian
Reposted by UofA Map/GIS Librarian
Reposted by UofA Map/GIS Librarian
![[portion] of Nelson River, exploratory survey ; Saskatchewan River, exploratory survey. Published by: Dominion Lands Office, Department of the Interior; Klotz, Otto J. Year 1885](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreih46www6pwhd6jys3we4notp7g5pmlggch6b7ob3wbrcbf4ab2pui@jpeg)
![Chieko, Shiomi [and George Maciunas], spatial poem no. 2[:] a fluxatlas[:] THIS IS THE RECORD OF VARIOUS DIRECTIONS TO WHICH PEOPLE WERE SIMULTANEOUSLY MOVING OR FACING AROUND 10PM ( GREENWICH TIME ) OCTOBER 15TH 1965. [NP:] Fluxus, 1966/reprinted 1992.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreidk2rhvtyff6fy2w67prhuuqvkiidblmoz6ja3haext34cam6zx64@jpeg)
![[Thumbnail] North America, British Possessions. Published by V. H. Nelson, London. [1826]
On Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/bp_6506/](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreifpsmps6rwe5ohspb3uvhtxh5hgkrashva4qbkzyf6lpsu374qnxq@jpeg)
![[portion] North America, British Possessions. Published by V. H. Nelson, London. [1826]
Showing Edmonton House, both branches of the Saskatchewan River that empties in Lake Winnipeg.
On Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/bp_6506/](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreicgw5e547hi4bspfrzgtfxk4xys4i3vjhpbcp5jrtsurvbqs2f4fy@jpeg)
![[portion] of Origins of Naming in Edmonton (City of Edmonton Archives) https://tinyurl.com/2p9n3uje
Before it was Edmonton
This place had names long before Europeans and other settlers arrived. People have lived in this area for thousands of years. The Cree called the area Beaver Hills (Amiskwaciy). The North Saskatchewan River was called Omaka-ty by the Blackfoot meaning Big River, and French maps from the 1790s called it Rivière Bourbon after the French royal family. We now call it the North Saskatchewan, based on the Cree word kis-is-ska-tche-wan meaning “swift current”. It was first documented as the Saskatchiwine River in 1793 by Alexander Mackenzie, and was an early example of how some names we use today are the result of misinterpretations or misunderstandings of Indigenous words. Other examples of this include Blackmud Creek (first noted in 1882) , which is a translation of the creek’s original Cree name kaskitewâw asiskîy, and Kinokamau Lake (first noted in 1895), which takes its name from the Cree word kinokamâw, meaning “long lake”.
Naming Edmonton 1795
Place names are a reflection of colonialism, and for evidence you need look no further than the name of this city. The name Edmonton was first given to Fort Edmonton, a Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) fur trading post on the North Saskatchewan River, in 1795. It was named after Edmonton, England, the birthplace of Sir James Winter Lake, who was at the meeting of the governors of the HBC when the fort was established. The fort was moved a number of times until finally, in 1830, it was built on the banks of the river where the south lawn of the Legislature sits today.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q66r3vy7xepmx62ti4vt7uzb/bafkreicur2gez4lvoriu7y2rpjlnxafzbdumxclzwskkjr367u3rtz2s7u@jpeg)