In the 1960s, Craig Macdonald, a lifelong, self-taught cartographer, ethnographer and artist, began a relentless documentation of not only where Indigenous trappers and their families travelled in northern Ontario but also how they moved - particularly in winter - by building and deploying a wide array of sleds and toboggans. To enable this highly detailed study, Craig became conversant in Anishinaabemowin and learned smatterings of Cree and Inuktitut before conducting interviews with dozens of Elders over a span of nearly forty years. This research was focussed on central Canada but ranged as well to Labrador in the east, Alaska in the west, various Inuit Nunangat communities in the North, and several American states below the border.
The first publication to emerge from this remarkable body of research was the Historical Map of Temagami, published in 1993 by the Ontario Geographical Names Board. This massive project - for the first time ever - documented the principal routes used for travel and communication before the advent of dams, roads and railways in mid-north Ontario. The large-format map, singular in the Canadian cartographic canon, is especially treasured by the Teme-Augama Anishinaabe. It has been consulted by academics, jurists and politicians, and used as evidence of enduring traditional land use in land-claim trials before both the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Traditional Sledding in North America is an equally consequential outcome of Craig's lifetime of primary research. This notable book - developed through respectful partnership with countless knowledge keepers, many of whom have since travelled on - is precious and unique. The contents capture a body of traditional Indigenous knowledge and know-how from coast to coast to coast, which might otherwise have been lost. With that instruction and fuelled by his own insatiable drive, Craig Macdonald has produced a winter traveller's guide for all time.
301 pages and over 400 images.
Available in hardcover and softcover, forward by Victoria Grant.