As the Crow Flies cARTography

08/28/2025

Chris was interviewed on CBC Vancouver's morning show while he was at the International Cartographic Conference. He discusses the work he does with Canadian Geographic and other clients to include Indigenous Peoples in the maps he designs. Listen to the interview here:

08/27/2025

Our lead-cartographer Chris Brackley had a successful keynote presentation at the International Cartographic Conference in Vancouver last week. Sharing with an audience from around the world the work ATCFC is doing with Canadian Geographic, and Canadian Geographic Education to meaningfully include Indigenous Peoples on maps in Canadian Geographic Magazine, and on Giant Floor Maps.

08/20/2025

Chris has been sharing some of the Giant Floor Maps he has designed with delegates from around the world at the International Cartographic Conference this week.

He was interviewed on the CBC morning show about his work to include Indigenous Peoples on the maps he creates for Canadian Geographic.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-91-the-early-edition/clip/16164339-putting-indigenous-peoples-back-map

06/16/2025

If you're in the downtown Toronto area tonight - come see Chris's talk about "Oceans, Freshwater and Us" a Giant Floor Map focused on water in Canada.

June 16
Yorkville Library
22 Yorkville Avenue
6:00-7:30

05/20/2025

The Canadian Geographic / Parks Canada Giant Floor map we designed last year was on display today at Canada House in London. Great to see King Charles III gesturing to different places on the map as he talks with Parry Bellegarde, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. If these Giant Maps have a common effect on people, it’s to inspire them to share stories about place. Our favourite kinds of stories!

Their Majesties explored a giant floor map of Canada created by Canadian Geographic Education in partnership with Parks Canada, one week before the King is set to open the new Parliamentary session in Ottawa

05/20/2025

The Canadian Geographic/Parks Canada Giant Floor Map we designed last year was on display today at Canada House in London. Great to see King Charles III gesturing to different places on the map as he talks with Parry Bellegarde former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. If these Giant Maps have a common effect on people, it's to inspire them to share stories about place. Our favourite kinds of stories!

https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/king-and-queen-visit-canada-house-in-london-to-mark-historic-anniversary/

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6766161

King Charles and Queen Camilla marked 100 years since the dedication of Canada House, the home of the High Commission of Canada in London, by King George V. The royals viewed a floor-sized map of Canada and were presented with a ceremonial key to the building.

05/20/2025

The Canadian Geographic/Parks Canada Giant Floor map we designed last year was on display today at Canada House in London. Great to see King Charles sharing stories with former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Perry Bellegarde, as he gestures to places on the map. If these Giant Maps do one thing well, it's spark conversations about place!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ4PEznMLza/?igsh=aGlsbzBnaXdtNGN4

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6766161

King Charles and Queen Camilla marked 100 years since the dedication of Canada House, the home of the High Commission of Canada in London, by King George V. The royals viewed a floor-sized map of Canada and were presented with a ceremonial key to the building.

01/28/2025

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-pickering-airport-lands-1.7442457

We recently completed a suite of maps for Land over Landings to support their work to get the Federal Pickering Airport Lands permanently protected and not turned into another major airport. The federal government has just announced that the "vast majority" of the lands will be added to Rouge National Urban Park. We are glad to have contributed to the storytelling that resulted in this positive decision for nature and agriculture in the Greater Toronto Area.

A decades-long discussion about whether to build an airport in Pickering, Ont. ended Monday, with Transport Minister Anita Anand saying it's not the 'best use' for the land.

01/31/2024

The Biinaagami interactive watershed map has just launched. In Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Anishinaabek Peoples, Biinaagami can be interpreted as “clean water.” The project was gifted this name by Elders Barbara Nolan of Garden River First Nation and Donna Debassige of Anishinabek Nation.

The Biinaagami project is rooted in collaboration, bringing together storytellers, Indigenous leaders, educators, scientists, artists, filmmakers and change-makers. We all share a responsibility to protect the lands and waters within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed.

The interactive map reveals the flow patterns for all watersheds in the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence basin. Do you know where the water from your favourite lake flows to, or what First Nations territories it passes through on its way to the sea? Check out the map to find out….

A watershed is an area that collects and directs all the water that falls within its boundaries into a larger body of water. A large watershed can be made up of many smaller subwatersheds.

09/05/2023

This year, forest fire smoke has reached the populated parts of North America like never before. The orange/brown skies and thick air had many of us who never had cause to think about forest fires wondering "what's going on?" and "has something changed?"
Chris Brackley's curiosity led him to create a map of forest fire history in Canada.

Check out the map on the Canadian Geographic website, and look for the map in CanGeo's upcoming November/December issue, where it will be accompanied by a suite of graphs that contextualize the variability in fire size and frequency year on year.

How exceptional is Canada’s 2023 fire season? Unprecedented, according to a map of the past century of fire activity

06/08/2023

ATCFC has had the privilege to create over fifteen Giant Floor Maps with Canadian Geographic in the last decade or so. They are 8 x 11 meter maps printed on billboard vinyl that travel to schools to teach kids about a wide range of subjects - from how energy is produced and transmitted across Canada to the incredible distances travelled by long-ranging wildlife in the Western Hemisphere.
A recent map we created focused on the connections between ourselves and the water around us - both freshwater and marine, with a particular focus on our ongoing effort to protect 30% of Canada's Ocean area by 2030.
That map is now available as an interactive online experience. It's the first time we've put ta full resolution version of a Giant Floor Map up online. It is in an interactive GIS environment, where you travel all around the country and can click on the Protected Areas to learn more about them:
https://canadaoceanmap.ca/

05/30/2023

If you've been wondering about the land use changes the Doug Ford government has imposed on Greater Toronto Area municipalities in the last number of months, check out the map we created for Environmental Defence:
https://environmentaldefence.ca/the-big-sprawl-the-gtha-has-more-than-enough-land-designated-for-development/

Unfortunately, municipal and provincial governments have never shared land use planning data with the public - so ATCFC did the work to digitize the relevant provincial and municipal planning maps, the removals from (and addition to) the Greenbelt, as well as the growth of our urban footprint over the last 20 years.

Not only did this allow Environmental Defence to quantify how much more land has been opened up for development compared to how much land we've used in 20 years, but it allowed ATCFC to create this powerful map that foretells of a future with much more city, and much less prime agricultural land.

Ontario has designated more than enough land to build new homes without touching the Greenbelt. The map below shows the different land designations in...Read More