Colonists fight British Feudalism. For a hundred years the settlers on the British Colony of Saint John’s Island/Prince Edward Island lived on the land in a manner that was unknown anywhere else in North America. When Samuel Holland produced his great map in 1765, the townships he created with a regularity that homogenised the topography of the landscape, belonged entirely to another country and another time. It was almost impossible for a settler to own his own property because the colony was set up in such a way that a perpetual landlord/tenant relationship was established for all time. This led to terrible and grotesque hardships for those who, at their…

What does the Lake Map look like? My first intimate encounter with the Lake map – now named after the chief suyveyor –  occurred in August 1994 when I was asked to prepare an evaluation and proposal concerning the restoration of this map in a local collection. I had the opportunity to spend some time  examining and studying it, and gaining a first hand experience of what the map was originally supposed to look like. The Lake Map is a huge lithograph meant to be hung on a wall, and is printed on heavy paper and mounted on two wooden rollers, the top one a plain moulding about 77 inches…