ARTICLES Mapping Traditional Knowledge: Digital Cartography in the Canadian North Nate J. Engler, Teresa Scassa, and D.R. Fraser Taylor Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC) / Department of Geography and Environmental Studies / Carleton University / Ottawa / ON / Canada ABSTRACT Digital cartography offers exciting opportunities for recording indigenous knowledge, particularly in contexts where a people’s relationship to the land has high cultural significance. Canada’s north offers a useful case study of both the opportunities and challenges of such projects. Through the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC), Inuit peoples have been invited to become partners in innovative digital mapping projects, including creating atlases of traditional place names, recording the patterns and movement of sea ice, and recording previously uncharted and often shifting traditional routes over ice and tundra. Such projects have generated interest in local communities because of their potential to record and preserve traditional knowledge and because they offer an attractive visual and multimedia interface that can address linguistic and cultural concerns. But given corporations’ growing interest in the natural resources of the Arctic and the concomitant rise in government concern about claims to Arctic sovereignty, such maps may also be of interest to a broad range of actors and for a variety of purposes. Because these projects rely heavily upon, and record, oral knowledge, and because they convert such knowledge into highly malleable and easily disseminated digital content, they raise challenging issues around informed consent, intellectual and cultural property, and privacy. This article identifies and examines these issues and describes the collaborative and interdisciplinary research established to identify and address the use of traditional knowledge in digital cartography. Keywords: cybercartography, intellectual property, traditional knowledge, informed consent, privacy, indigenous mapping RE ´ SUME ´ La cartographie nume ´rique offre des possibilite ´s inte ´ressantes pour consigner le savoir autochtone, particulie `rement dans les contextes ou ` le rapport entre la personne et la terre a une grande importance culturelle. Le nord du Canada offre une e ´tude de cas utile a ` la fois des possibilite ´s et des de ´fis que pre ´sentent de tels projets. Par l’entremise du Centre de recherches en ge ´omatique et cartographie (CRGC), des Inuits ont e ´te ´ invite ´s a ` devenir partenaires de projets innovateurs de cartographie nume ´rique, qui visent notamment a ` cre ´er des atlas de noms d’endroits traditionnels, a ` consigner les tendances et le mouvement des glaces maritimes et a ` consigner les itine ´raires traditionnels non cartographie ´s et souvent changeants sur la glace et la toundra. De tels projets ont suscite ´ de l’inte ´re ˆt dans les communaute ´s locales parce qu’ils offrent des possibilite ´s de consigner et de pre ´server le savoir ancestral et aussi une interface visuelle et multime ´diatique attrayante qui peut tenir compte des pre ´occupations linguistiques et culturelles. Comme les entreprises s’inte ´ressent de plus en plus aux ressources naturelles de l’Arctique et e ´tant donne ´ la monte ´e concomitante des pre ´occupations du gouvernement au sujet des revendications relatives a ` la souverainete ´ dans l’Arctique, de telles cartes peuvent aussi inte ´resser un vaste e ´ventail d’intervenants pour toutes sortes de raisons. Comme ces projets comptent e ´norme ´ment sur le savoir oral qu’ils consignent et comme ils transforment ce savoir en contenu nume ´rique tre `s malle ´able et facile a ` diffuser, ils soule `vent des questions difficiles portant sur le consentement e ´claire ´, la proprie ´te ´ intellectuelle et culturelle et la protection de la vie prive ´e. Cet article circonscrit et analyse ces questions et de ´crit la recherche concerte ´e et inter- disciplinaire lance ´e pour de ´terminer et aborder l’usage du savoir ancestral en cartographie nume ´rique. Mots cle ´s : cybercartographie, proprie ´te ´ intellectuelle, savoir ancestral, consentement e ´claire ´, vie prive ´e, cartographie autochtone Introduction The indigenous peoples of Canada’s northern territories currently are facing unprecedented social and environ- mental challenges as a result of both increased political and economic interest in this extensive and once remote landscape, and climate change which is causing rapid melting of the sea ice. This change may reduce the costs Cartographica 48:3, 2013, pp. 189–199 6 University of Toronto Press doi:10.3138/carto.48.3.1685 189