Making theComing HomeMap

Abstract

To mark Canada 150, the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine released a new map, Coming Home to Indigenous Place Names in Canada. The map is intended to honour Indigenous place names in Canada and the assertion of Indigenous authority through place naming. It was made possible by permissions and contributions from First Nation, Métis, and Inuit communities, organizations, and language speakers. In this article, we explain how and why this map came to be made at the Canadian-American Center. We examine the methods we used to request and include place names and how this process in turn informed the design of the visual language of the map.