Where Is Local Girl?

Caroline Clifford is a UK web comic blogger, known as Local Girl. I find her comics and stories about her daily life amusing (if sometimes a little TMI...).

Local Girl has embarked on a summer adventure traveling through Canada and the United States by bicycle, bus and train. She has created a Google Map that allows her fans to know Where Is Local Girl?:



She started in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is working her way through the Maritimes before heading south. I especially like the custom marker pin she has created using her comic icon.

Perhaps at some point she will cross paths with Evan on his "crazy ass" adventure.


#214

New Bretton

[Another entry from Michael5000's Forgotten Lands with maps by Cartophiliac.]

New Bretton
Capital: Ipswich
Population: 12,493 (2001 Census)

Economy: Fish, Optical Equipment

When Newfoundland voted to join the Canadian Federation in 1949, the local vote on the fishing island of New Bretton was strongly against union. One week later, the island’s local government invoked an unusual provision in its original royal charter – dated 1678 – guaranteeing it the right to "dissociate from any colonie, or other lands of ye king, or any conjoining to these at will". Initially dismissed as an anachronism, the clause was ultimately found legally binding by the Newfoundland courts. New Bretton thus became one of the world’s smallest independent entities.



Although they rely on Great Britain for defense and representation in world bodies, New Brettons are a fiercely nationalistic people. “Never call a New Bretton a Canadian,” goes the local joke – “and the bigger he is, the more important that you don’t.” Though to the outsider there might seem to be little cultural distinction between New Bretton and the Atlantic provinces around it, to the natives there is much substance in small differences.

New Bretton is spared many of the Northwest Atlantic region’s economic woes due to the presence of New Bretton Scientific, a leading world manufacturer of precision optical equipment. Occupying a bluff overlooking the capital and only real town, the company’s production facility employs one of every five New Brettons, many in highly skilled and well-paid positions. Local entrepreneur Brian Redham founded the company in his basement in 1962, and is now thought to be comfortably among the world’s richest 100 people.

Flag: A red St. George’s cross is evidence of the English ancestry of most islanders. The white background of the English flag is replaced by blue, however, on New Bretton’s banner. No symbolism is attached to the blue; a typically pragmatic New Bretton once told the author that “they had to pick something besides white, else it would still be the flag of England.”

[Cartophiliac's Note:] While preparing to map this forgotten land, I discovered yet another interesting tidbit of information. It is commonly known that the nation of Canada is covered by six different time zones, ranging from Pacific (UTC-8) to Atlantic (UTC-4) and Newfoundland Standard (UTC-3:30). However, in typical New Brettonish style, the inhabitants have stubbornly refused to acknowledge the "standard time" of their neighbors, and instead insist upon the use of New Bretton Lunar Time (ranging from UTC-3:15 to UTC-3:45) based on a complicated system controlled in part by the phase of the moon. Many New Brettons, not employed by New Bretton Scientific, are engaged as public clock resetters. A daily task.


Congratulations to New Bretton for the distinction of being the 200th post on Cartophilia!

Have Another Beer, Eh?

Beer map of Canada, from Geist

Bad Trips

Bad Trips: a sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious collection of writing on the perils of the road, edited and with introduction by Keath Fraser.

Some of the best-known writers of the twentieth century share stories about "bad trips," and I don't mean on drugs... They're talking about everything from losing their luggage, to getting lost in the wilderness. Authors include: David Mamet, Martin Amis, Umberto Eco, Bob Geldof, John Updike, Paul Theroux and Graham Greene.

Of course, the part of the book that caught my eye, is the map. I especially like combining the metaphors of map, jigsaw puzzle and being set adrift on an ice flow.

Can anyone identify the location of the map on the cover? It appears to be part of Canada's Northwest Territories or Nunavut.

UPDATE: Click on this image to get a higher res view of the map:

More Maps in Ads

As noted earlier, maps in advertising, actually maps as an element of design, caught my eye, and got me started on this collection.

Over the years, I have saved ads that caught my eye. Here are a few more:

Put the photos together into the shape of the continental United States, and you tell your potential customers they can call anywhere, without reading the words.

From the beltway, all roads lead to the capital...


Could it be... maps?