HOME IN WINNIPEG. PHOTOS: PHIL HOSSACK/ WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
BÉRARD AT HIS
The Map Maker RéAL BéRARD BY BILL REDEKOP h
e’s a local treasure, mapping a labyrinth of canoe routes that crisscross Manitoba, and inspiring
countless paddlers to discover the wilderness via river byways. Many consider Réal Bérard’s hand-drawn maps
to be works of art. Not intended as navigational charts, each is annotated with Bérard’s illustrations, old trapper songs, botanical notes, recipes, historic anecdotes, biographies, as well as markings for every waterfall, rapid and portage—measured out in paces like the Voyageurs—along Manitoba’s rivers. “When I first put my hands on one of his maps,
I was transported to the rivers,” says Jonathan Berger of Philadelphia, author of the extraordinary The Canoe Atlas of the Little North. “His drawings give me my aesthetic lens through which I view the North.” Bérard got his route mapping start when he snared
a summer job with Manitoba’s Department of Natural Resources in 1962. That season his supervisor sent him and two others on a 500-kilometer canoe trip. It was a dry summer and the canoeists were
ostensibly to help extinguish any forest fires they came upon. The trip took a month, ending at the mouth of Berens River at Lake Winnipeg. They never saw a single forest fire. In those days, conservation staff was required to
keep daily logs, which Bérard dutifully did. A few years later, with Bérard now a full-time employee, the supervisor asked him to make a canoe route map from his notes and drawings, as a way of encouraging people to experience Manitoba’s wilderness. Bérard made his first map, and filled in the
margins with local lore and history. He continued mapping waterways for the province for the next 20 years, producing 13 maps to date. They include dominant rivers like the Assiniboine and Winnipeg, and well-known canoeing routes like the Bird and Manigotagan rivers. Most have a central theme specific to that area, exploring native culture or the fur trade for example. A full-time artist since 1990, Bérard’s other artistic
endeavors include being an award-winning ice sculptor. He has also been the political cartoonist for 30 years at La Liberté, a weekly Francophone newspaper in Manitoba. And he still canoes. Last year, Bérard, 79, and a friend, an 82-year-old trapper, paddled for a week on a loop that starts on the Nelson River in Northern Manitoba. He is currently making a map of the little known route, which is an easy trip, accessible by road and without rapids. When asked if he isn’t a little old to be making such treks, he responded in his characteristically unconventional way: “I’d rather be eaten by wolves and ravens, than by maggots.”
Order Réal Bérard’s maps at
www.paddle.mb.ca.
www.rapidmedia.com 51
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