“The best adventures, it seems, often start with a map,” writes explorer Adam Shoalts in his new book, A History of Canada in 10 Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land.

That’s certainly true of the exploits of characters such as Edmond Dantès, Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, as Shoalts notes — but he insists that when it comes to cartography, fact trumps fiction: “Hidden away in archives or carefully preserved in temperature-controlled museum cases sit real, historic maps that are even more fascinating.”

Shoalts makes good on this argument, presenting 10 maps that span nearly a thousand years, tell “stories of adventure, discovery and exploration, but also of conquest, empire, power, and violence,” and are connected to explorers ranging from the Vikings to Sir John Franklin.

The excerpt below includes maps and portions of text from the chapters of the book about Jacques Cartier, David Thompson and Franklin.

The birth of “Canada”