Cartographic Poetry

Examining Historic Blackfoot and Gros Ventre Maps

Ted Binnema, François Lanoë, Heinz W. Pyszczyk

• Publisher: University of Alberta Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781772127997
• eBook ISBN: 9781772128161
• Subtopic: Geografia storica

"Poetry is language condensed; Blackfoot cartography is landscape distilled."

Cartographic Poetry is the first book-length, multidisciplinary study of five maps drawn in 1801 and 1802 by several Blackfoot and Gros Ventre people for the Hudson's Bay Company. Representing some of the oldest documents created by Indigenous people on the North American prairies and foothills, these maps preserve invaluable evidence about places on the landscape, and about historic Blackfoot views of their territories. The maps were intended as navigational tools, but the landforms and locations on the maps hold significance for the Blackfoot well beyond wayfinding, and have for many centuries. Exploring their content and utility from historical, linguistic, and archaeological perspectives, Ted Binnema, François Lanoë, and Heinz W. Pyszczyk analyze the maps, their place names and features, and the tours and trips they may have supported, along with providing present-day photographs of many of the maps' landforms. A final section of the book outlines how Indigenous maps contributed significantly to Western geographical knowledge and maps of North America from the 1500s onward. Cartographic Poetry will appeal to anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, historians, cartographers, and to all readers interested in how Indigenous peoples perceived and navigated their territories in this early period of colonial encounter. With a Foreword by Jerry Potts Jr. and an Afterword by Dr. Eldon Yellowhorn.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• A Note on Indigenous Names
• A Note on Orthography
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Maps and Photographs
• 1 | Learning from Early Nineteenth-Century Blackfoot Maps
• 2 | The Ac ko mok ki Map of 1801
• 3 | Three Indigenous Maps Drawn in 1802
• 4 | The Ki oo cus Map of 1802
• 5 | Tours and Trips on the Ac ko mok ki and Ki oo cus Maps
• 6 | Exploring the “Different Tribes” of Ac ko mok ki’s Map and the Gros Ventre Map
• 7 | Contributions of Indigenous Cartography to Western Cartography
• Afterword
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author