As the Crow Flies cARTography

01/31/2024

The Biinaagami interactive watershed map has just launched. In Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Anishinaabek Peoples, Biinaagami can be interpreted as “clean water.” The project was gifted this name by Elders Barbara Nolan of Garden River First Nation and Donna Debassige of Anishinabek Nation.

The Biinaagami project is rooted in collaboration, bringing together storytellers, Indigenous leaders, educators, scientists, artists, filmmakers and change-makers. We all share a responsibility to protect the lands and waters within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed.

The interactive map reveals the flow patterns for all watersheds in the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence basin. Do you know where the water from your favourite lake flows to, or what First Nations territories it passes through on its way to the sea? Check out the map to find out….

A watershed is an area that collects and directs all the water that falls within its boundaries into a larger body of water. A large watershed can be made up of many smaller subwatersheds.

09/05/2023

This year, forest fire smoke has reached the populated parts of North America like never before. The orange/brown skies and thick air had many of us who never had cause to think about forest fires wondering "what's going on?" and "has something changed?"
Chris Brackley's curiosity led him to create a map of forest fire history in Canada.

Check out the map on the Canadian Geographic website, and look for the map in CanGeo's upcoming November/December issue, where it will be accompanied by a suite of graphs that contextualize the variability in fire size and frequency year on year.

How exceptional is Canada’s 2023 fire season? Unprecedented, according to a map of the past century of fire activity

06/08/2023

ATCFC has had the privilege to create over fifteen Giant Floor Maps with Canadian Geographic in the last decade or so. They are 8 x 11 meter maps printed on billboard vinyl that travel to schools to teach kids about a wide range of subjects - from how energy is produced and transmitted across Canada to the incredible distances travelled by long-ranging wildlife in the Western Hemisphere.
A recent map we created focused on the connections between ourselves and the water around us - both freshwater and marine, with a particular focus on our ongoing effort to protect 30% of Canada's Ocean area by 2030.
That map is now available as an interactive online experience. It's the first time we've put ta full resolution version of a Giant Floor Map up online. It is in an interactive GIS environment, where you travel all around the country and can click on the Protected Areas to learn more about them:
https://canadaoceanmap.ca/

05/30/2023

If you've been wondering about the land use changes the Doug Ford government has imposed on Greater Toronto Area municipalities in the last number of months, check out the map we created for Environmental Defence:
https://environmentaldefence.ca/the-big-sprawl-the-gtha-has-more-than-enough-land-designated-for-development/

Unfortunately, municipal and provincial governments have never shared land use planning data with the public - so ATCFC did the work to digitize the relevant provincial and municipal planning maps, the removals from (and addition to) the Greenbelt, as well as the growth of our urban footprint over the last 20 years.

Not only did this allow Environmental Defence to quantify how much more land has been opened up for development compared to how much land we've used in 20 years, but it allowed ATCFC to create this powerful map that foretells of a future with much more city, and much less prime agricultural land.

Ontario has designated more than enough land to build new homes without touching the Greenbelt. The map below shows the different land designations in...Read More

05/05/2023

https://magazine-awards.com/en/2023nominees/

Chris' article on the Hudson Bay lowlands has been nominated for a National Magazine award in the "One of a Kind Storytelling" category. There's no category for "Best Cartographic Essay" (yet).

Awards will be handed out on June 2.

The National Media Awards Foundation (NMAF) is delighted to announce the nominees for the 46th annual National Magazine Awards. Our incredible roster of 106 volunteer judges dedicated countless hou…

08/30/2022

Ever since noticing the immense swath of wetland in northern Ontario/Manitoba/Quebec known as the Hudson Bay Lowlands in a land cover dataset Chris has been keen to dive deeper into this little-known landscape. In this month's issue of Canadian Geographic - he got the chance.

Canadian Geographic’s cartographer explores the many facets of the Hudson Bay lowlands, one of the world’s most significant wetlands

04/07/2022

Chris worked with the Canadian Geographic Education team to create a downloadable tiled-map focused on the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. It shows the most recent Ukrainian population numbers across Canada, as well as charting the growth in the Ukrainian Canadian population since the first Ukrainians arrived here in the late 1800s. The inset map of Ukraine is rendered at the same scale as the map of Canada, offering Canadians a sense of the scale of the region as it relates to the land they know.
https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/rcgs-releases-new-map-solidarity-ukraine

Map shows the distribution of people of Ukrainian descent across Canada, highlighting the deep connection between the two countries

04/02/2022

To celebrate Geo Night, the "International Night of Geography", As the Crow Flies' Chris Brackley worked with Canadian Geographic Education to stage a discussion about, what else - the power of maps to help us conceptualize and better understand our ever-changing world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6X1-h8Sfq4

Chris Brackley, Cartographer-in-Residence for Canadian Geographic magazine, discusses the research, planning, and development of some of his most informative...

08/09/2021

The Royal Canadian Mint has just released a 5 oz. pure silver coin celebrating the Great Lakes, designed by As the Crow Flies' Chris Brackley.

https://youtu.be/3DQx9ePNY2w

Order today: https://www.mint.ca/store/coins/coin-prod3800034

04/22/2020

Latest blog dives into the way map design can make the same data tell different stories.
https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/mapping-covid-19-how-maps-make-us-feel

Canadian Geographic cartographer Chris Brackley continues his exploration of how the world is charting the COVID-19 pandemic, this time looking at how artistic choices inform our reactions to different maps

04/07/2020

The next post in Chris' series on Covid-19 digs deeper into the data and ventures into the curious craft of cartograms.
https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/mapping-covid-19-cases-canada-capita

Canadian Geographic cartographer Chris Brackley continues his exploration of charting the coronavirus pandemic

04/01/2020

Check out the first of Chris Brackley's ongoing posts about the mapping of COVID-19

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/what-are-maps-really-saying-about-covid-19-canada

Canadian Geographic’s cartographer explores how media, scientists and citizens are charting the coronavirus pandemic

03/18/2020

If you're looking for something to do during these stay-at-home times, consider picking up the latest issue of Canadian Geographic when you're out resupplying. The March/April issue contains Chris Brackley's first published article. The subject of the piece is the jaw-dropping landscape of Lake Superior's North Shore, and in what is arguably the world's first "cartographic essay", it harnesses maps, words and sketches to distill and describe how a map-maker sees the world.

01/26/2019

The Giant Floor Map we created with Canadian Geographic in partnership with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has been making a splash across Canada, depicting a distinctly different view of the country:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-peoples-atlas-giant-floor-map-1.4975447

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/giant-indigenous-peoples-atlas-floor-map-will-change-the-way-you-see-canada-1.4973372

10/01/2018

Indigenous Atlas of Canada on The Agenda...

https://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/an-indigenous-view-of-canada

We have spent a good portion of the last year working with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, The Métis National Council, and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to create the core maps for the Indigenous Atlas of Canada, and the associated Giant Floor Map.

Steve Paikin hosted a discussion of the Atlas last Thursday, with Charlene Bearhead and Julian Brave NoiseCat. A great piece, with some real focus on the maps!

The Agenda discusses a new Indigenous history atlas.

06/04/2018

ATCFC's Chris Brackley, along with handling editor Nick Walker and writer Wade Davis took home the gold medal for "One of a Kind Storytelling " at the National Magazine Awards on Friday night for their poster map in Canadian Geographic Magazine depicting current status of the many Indigenous Languages of Canada.
https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/mapping-indigenous-languages-canada
http://www.magazine-awards.com/