Address:

69 Joseph Street, Port Carling, Ontario, P0B 1J0
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Category:

Library

Event Details:

Come for Coffee Break where we supply free coffee and tea at 10:30 a.m. then, for this day, join us in the activity room at 11:00 a.m. as we host author and historian J. Patrick Boyer who will discuss his latest book in his Modern History of Muskoka series, Putting Muskoka on the Map.

Between Samuel Champlain’s first map in 1615 and today’s satellite images of Muskoka from outer space lies a centuries-long drama that proves putting Muskoka on a map was neither easy nor straightforward.

In Putting Muskoka on the Map, author Boyer presents a parade of human endurance and ingenuity, the indispensable roles of First Nations, the role of military planning, the aspirations of land developers, the relationship between First Nations and settlers, legendary Canadian map-maker David Thompson’s unique role in mapping Muskoka – and the mystery of his “lost” maps just when they were most needed most for Muskoka settlement. The saga continues with the tribulations of land surveyors seeking to subdivide raw Canadian Shield landscape into a neat grid, challenges facing road-builders, conflicting land-use policies of government, and the shifts from logging and homesteading to a vacation economy that next put Muskoka on the continent’s social map. 

Signed copies will be available for purchase.