The Atlas of Canada Project

Summary

In 1943, the Canadian Social Science Research Council formed a Committee, chaired by Benoit Brouillette, to assess the prospects for creating a comprehensive national atlas. The Committee first distinguished between two atlas types: dictionary atlases, which simply locate places, and scientific geographic atlases, which synthesize physiography, climate, biota, and human and economic geography based on the latest geographic knowledge. It reviewed leading examples of the latter, including the Atlas of Finland, the Great Soviet World Atlas, and the Atlas of France, among others. To evaluate domestic capacity, the Committee surveyed map sources across Canada, locating 16 in Ottawa alone and investigating provincial efforts, finding that only Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia produced original cartographic work. The survey confirmed a pressing need for a modern atlas of Canada. The central challenge for the Committee’s future work was to decide whether to pursue a rigorously scientific atlas or a more accessible, popular publication, and to determine the feasibility of such an undertaking given the country’s cartographic resources.