Map of the Month: Historical map of Temagami (Te-mee-ay-gaming)

“He unrolled his map at a board meeting and it was a revelation to see so much fabulous work. It was a great manuscript. The Surveyor-General saw it and said: ‘My God, we’ve got to publish it.‘”
- Michael Smart, formerly of the Ontario Geographical Names Board, as quoted by D'Arcy Jenish

We are fortunate to hold a copy of the Historical map of Temagami (Te-mee-ay-gaming), showing the traditional routes of travel, campsites and geographical names of the indigenous Anishinawbeg before 1900 (Macdonald 1985). This map represents twenty-six years of work by Craig Macdonald, who worked for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Macdonald became familiar with Anishinaabemowin and worked closely with Anishinaabe elders in Temagami, Ontario, gaining their consent and support to produce this map showing their portage routes (in red), winter trails (in green), and traditional placenames. He walked or canoed each of these routes and interviewed, by his estimation, over 500 Anishinaabe Elders (Jenish 2006). He also depicted waterbodies as they appeared before damming projects altered their shorelines. In other words, he produced a detailed historical map, preserving the knowledge of many elders who have now passed away.

Forgetting is a result of colonization.
Craig Macdonald was on our path.
We are thankful.
- Chief Shelly Moore-Frappier, Temagami First Nation (Raffan 2025, vii)

But maps and geographic knowledge are never merely historical. 

In 1983, Macdonald was called as an expert witness in a legal case between the Province of Ontario v. the Bear Island Foundation and representatives of the Temagami First Nation regarding a land claim. Macdonald spoke as a witness for the Temagami First Nation, drawing on his experience as a cartographer and as an expert who had spoken with many Anishinaabe Elders from this region. At the same time, due to administrative delays, Macdonald had also been waiting for years for his map to be printed. Both responses came close together: in 1984, the Ontario Supreme Court ruled in favour of the provincial government (Raffan 2025, 225), a decision which the Supreme Court of Canada later upheld. Soon after, in 1985, Macdonald's map was finally printed.

Some of Macdonald's testimony is captured in James Raffan's Echo Maker (Raffan 2025), which also documents the creation of this map. Raffan describes the deeply ambivalent emotions in 1985 as Macdonald returns to Temagami First Nation, bringing copies of his map: he shares laughs with the surviving elders as he inscribes personal copies for each of them, but this moment of reconnection is set against a backdrop of frustration and disappointment (Raffan 2025, 237-238).

Macdonald's map had only a single print run (Raffan 2025, 234). We hold one copy, which is available for consultation on-site. Northwestern University Libraries hosts a detailed scan online for academic, non-commercial use.

University of Toronto users can borrow a copy of Echo Maker (Raffan 2025) from the E.J. Pratt Library, and the Toronto Public Library also holds a copy. 

References

Jenish, D'Arcy. "Mapman Of Temagami." Legion: Canada's Military History Magazine. May 1, 2006. https://legionmagazine.com/mapman-of-temagami/ [Accessed February 2, 2026.]

MacDonald, Craig, and Ontario Geographic Names Board. Historical Map of Temagami (Te-Mee-Ay-Gaming), Showing the Traditional Routes of Travel, Campsites and Geographical Names of the Indigenous Anishinawbeg before 1900. Ontario Geographic Names Board, 1985.

Ontario (Attorney General) v. Bear Island Foundation, [1991] 2 S.C.R. 570. https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/782/index.do 

Raffan, James. Echo Maker : Craig Macdonald and the Lives That Produced One of Canada’s Most Significant Historical Maps. Dundurn Press, 2025.