Adam Shoalts, Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, is known as an adventurer. Stories of his canoe tripping adventures in Alone against the North had me on the edge of my seat! In this volume he turns his attention to adventures of a bygone era.

Starting with the Vikings and ending with the post-1812 exploration of the Arctic by Dr. John Richardson, Shoalts uses the rubric of maps to tell the history of how the Country now known as Canada was explored and mapped by Europeans. While all the chapters are fascinating, the account of Alexander Mackenzie’s traverse of the Rocky Mountain range to reach the Pacific Ocean is mind-boggling. It’s one thing to face the wild, another to meet Indigenous people who may or may not welcome your presence (for good reason).

It was encouraging to read how the best explorers are the ones who developed friendships with the Indigenous people, learning survival skills and trading in good faith. The nature of some of these explorers stand in sharp contrast to the Americans and their invasion attempt of 1812.

As you might expect, the ten maps are reproduced in glossy glory in the centre of the book. It’s fascinating to see how the unknown gradually takes shape as more and more cartographers press westward and northward.

Shoalts has written a gripping history of Canada that will keep the reader flipping pages and dreaming of what it must have been like all those years ago.

Shoalts, Adam. A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land. Penguin Canada, 2017.