The Map Shop is Open!

I’ve had a new venture quietly brewing behind the scenes, and I’m thrilled to finally share it with you! While it’s not a new book release (though several are on the way), it is delightfully book-adjacent: I’ve been creating fantasy-style maps of Canada’s provinces — and they’re now available through The Little Canadian Map Shop.

This project blends two things I love deeply: the art of mapmaking, which I first learned while designing worlds for my fantasy novels, and my lifelong affection for Canada. As I started drawing these maps — and saw how much joy and curiosity they sparked in others — I knew I was onto something special.

I think I first truly fell in love with Canada when I was living far from it.

I’d always appreciated my home country — proud to say I was Canadian, proud of the vast skies and the clean air, the sense of quiet safety. But growing up surrounded by it, I took it for granted. Canada, to me, was familiar. Beautiful, yes — but maybe a little boring. Predictable. Ordinary. It was all I’d ever known.

That changed when I moved abroad.

I was living in Switzerland — a country that seems drawn from a fairytale, all alpine peaks, tidy villages, and clocks that run with uncanny precision. I adored it. Every few miles down the train line, you’d tumble into another postcard-perfect town, and I loved the order, the charm, the way it all fit together like a handcrafted music box.

But when people found out I was from Canada, their eyes would widen. Especially the children. To them, it wasn’t just a country. It was a legend. A vast, wild frontier where moose and bears roamed free — animals they spoke of with reverence, as though straight out of a fable. Canada, to them, was untamed. Grand. Mysterious.

I began to see it that way, too.

Flying home, crossing the continent from above, I’d look out the plane window with new eyes. The little towns I used to pass without thought now seemed curious and ancient, their Indigenous names whispering of histories I didn’t yet understand. The forests stretched endlessly — dark, dense, primal. There are still places here no human has ever stepped. That realization hit me like a revelation: you could be the first. The land itself holds its breath, waiting to tell its story.

I live in Canada again now. But the awe has never left me.

In fact, it’s grown deeper. I want to see more. Learn more. I want to map this place — not just its geography, but its heart. The places that shape us. The landscapes that teach us who we are.

The true north, strong and free.

Canada continues to take my breath away.

Provincial maps available to date: Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan

CIty/Specialty maps available: Calgary, St. Albert, Franco-Alberta

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Published on July 21, 2025 06:49
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Cordelia Kelly
Lots and lots of book recommendations, usually broken into interesting categories: women in horror, world history non-fiction, books set in the circus ...
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