Echo Maker: Craig MacDonald and the Lives That Produced One of Canada’s Most Significant Historical Maps

In an example of truth and reconciliation put into practice, Craig Macdonald spent decades creating a unique map of Temagami, developed through trust and experience, in partnership with the Teme-Augama Anishnabai.

James Raffan’s biography of Craig Macdonald and how the Historical Map of Temagami came to be is a remarkable tale. In the mid-1960s, Macdonald began interviewing and travelling with Indigenous trappers and travellers. He became familiar with Anishinaabemowin and built a lasting bond with the traditional knowledge holders. Returning year after year to map the land, Macdonald painstakingly plotted traditional placenames, original shorelines, elevations, and traditional summer and winter travel routes -- including the documentation of more than twelve hundred canoe portages and winter snowshoe trails. His map is unique in the Canadian cartographic canon, and its genesis is a story that has never been told, until now.

James Raffan is one of Canada’s most authoritative voices on canoes and wilderness travel. Author of several bestselling books including Bark, Skin and Cedar, Wildwaters, and Circling the Midnight Sun, his latest book Echo Maker, a portrait of his long time friend Craig Macdonald, was written at the request of the People of Bear Island First Nation and the Temagami Community Foundation.