In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke\u2019s article, \u201cA Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.\u201d You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: \u201cContrapuntal Cartographies\u201d (468 \u2013 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke\u2019s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: \u201cWe\u2019ll call this the map that roared.\u201d<\/p>\n
I recall the last time I used my GPS and map. Specifically, I was driving to visit a friend in Burnaby, and made sure to type in \u2018Burnaby\u2019 for when my GPS asked me for the city of my destination. Interestingly when I got there, the line that separated Richmond and Burnaby wasn\u2019t a gigantic strip of paint on a guarded road that I had expected from reading the map, labeled \u2018From here, it is the land of Burnaby\u2019. So how do maps actually\u2026work? What do they actually\u2026do and mean?<\/p>\n
A map can actually speak to us. Arguably, a map can actually have an effect on how our society is run, operated and thought of. Think about it. Maps are representations of our land, and lines that separate \u2018your\u2019 land and \u2018mine\u2019. The words \u2018You\u2019re on my land\u2019 wouldn\u2019t exist without the performance and application of mapping techniques and traditions. A map can come to define what is what, and where is where. A map for example is visual proof of where Canada as a nation starts and stops, purely structurally. These maps can speak to us in the way it tells us what is Canadian and what is not<\/a>, in the most simplistic way of paper and pen, with lines and borders. But is what makes us Canadians purely what fits into these lines and what doesn\u2019t? In Sparke\u2019s words, the map, the \u201cmore radical and creative aspect of the Atlas<\/em> has been to provide a cartographic \u201cmusical score\u201d which, once given contrapuntal voicing, can enable its national Canadian audience to rethink the colonial frontiers of national knowledge itself\u201d (Sparke 468). In other words, a map sings to us in the way that it attempts to define what \u2018us\u2019 even means. But how can this be dangerous and detrimental to identity restoration of \u2018what used to be\u2019? How can maps then become a way of segregating not only the land, but the past and the present?<\/p>\n Judge McEachern makes the statement \u201cWe\u2019ll call this the map that roared\u201d. I can see why the map can be a highly distrusted article used to define a nation, or a nation\u2019s identity. Maps have the ability to literally break up, fragment and divide kingdoms and land with, arguably, arbitrary lines of separation and ownership. I am drawn to the lectures\u00a0of a previous English professor of mine\u00a0in regards to his research\u00a0on maps and its effects in William Shakespeare\u2019s King Lear<\/em>. Simplistically,\u00a0his research and analysis was focused on how maps can come to represent a form of blindness in its ability to simplistically abstract a nation\u2019s meaning down to mere lines of separation and definition. \u00a0Land, its meaning and culture, is reduced to pure markings on a page. A map is dangerous<\/a>\u00a0(Page 423 of book)\u00a0in this way, and can be thought of as threatening to a nation\u2019s identity and history. I believe the roaring of the map in Sparke\u2019s article refers to the \u201csimultaneously [evoking of] the resistance in the First Nations\u2019 remapping of the land: the cartography\u2019s roaring refusal of the orientation systems, the trap lines, the property lines\u2026\u201d (Sparke 468). The roaring is the oral and auditory cry of distrust and anger towards the dangerous nature of maps\u00a0and its ability to literally break apart nations and it\u2019s identities.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe the \u2018roaring\u2019 starts and stops with a map. I believe the creation, retrieval and maintaining of national identities innately carry a sense of battle, and a need for a roar, for one\u2019s own history and meaning. A roar for identity, a roar for pride and a roar for patriotism. Maps attempt to silence these powerful and meaningful roars with its own loud roars of separation, fragmentation, and a need for selfish ownership. Maps mute the cries for identity.<\/p>\n What would Canada be like without borders?<\/p>\n What would all our nations\u00a0be like without borders?<\/p>\n What would our World be like without borders?<\/p>\n Words Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n Carlson, Kathryn B. “Year in Ideas: How Canadian Identity Has Changed and What It Means for Our Future.” National Post Year in Ideas How Canadian Identity Has Changed and What It Means for Ourfuture Comments<\/i>. National Post, 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <http:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/2012\/12\/28\/year-in-ideas-how-canadian-identity-has-changed-and-what-it-means-for-our-future\/>.<\/p>\n Outhwaite, William. “Nationalism.” The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought<\/i>. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. 423. Print. <https:\/\/books.google.ca\/books id=JJmdpqJwkwwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false><\/p>\n Sparke, Mathew. \u201cA Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.\u201d Annals of the Association of American Geographers<\/i> 88.3 (1998): 463- 495. Web. 11 February 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke\u2019s article, \u201cA Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.\u201d You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: \u201cContrapuntal Cartographies\u201d (468 \u2013 470). 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