A motoring map to the Great White North
Published on
Mar 01, 2007
Have you been to Transmission Brook in Labrador? People like to go there on the weekend, to shift gears and relax. How about Tow Hill in B.C.? It's so beautiful and romantic you might want to get hitched there. But Lac Piston in Quebec, we wouldn't recommend. It's kind of boring, missing a spark so to speak. And how about ... Well, how about we shut up and just tell you about the Automotive Map of Canada?
We found it in the Geist Atlas of Canada, published by Arsenal Pulp Press of Vancouver (www.arsenalpulp.com). The atlas features 50 such "themed" maps, each peppered with relevant place names. There are obvious ones, like The Hockey Map and The Beer Map, and less obvious ones, like The Map of Kitchen Implements and The Gay Map. All were culled from the pages of Geist Magazine, and from its on-going series, Caught Mapping.
Accompanying each map is a page that explains how some of the places got their names. Examples from the Automotive Map:
Lac Du Moteur Gruge, QC: A lake named in 1996 to commemorate a boat engine that was dinged up by a porcupine.
Bentley, AB: The agrarian settlers in this town wanted to name it for Major Macpherson, a US civil war veteran who founded the general store and post office. The sawmill workers wanted to name it for George Bentley, a sawyer with lots of friends. Each group used its own name, but the millworkers outnumbered the farmers, and by 1906 Bentley had won out. Today it's the home of Alberta's largest recumbent bike shop.
The Geist Atlas of Canada is available at all fine booksellers across the land, possibly even in places like Harry Man Point (Manitoba) and Rump Cove (Newfoundland).