Shipwrecks of Nova Scotia

By Peter Atwood, Centre of Geographic Sciences, Nova Scotia.

This map was produced for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It depicts the locations of notable shipwrecks in the waters around the province. The map is accompanied by narratives from the museum’s shipwreck database describing several of the most historically significant wrecks. The goal of the map was to take data from the museum’s archive which currently exists only as text, and graphically represent the events in their geographic context.

The style of the map was inspired by antique maps and newspaper articles from the museum’s archive. Hatching and stippling effects were used along with serif typefaces and justified text to emulate the style of printed maps from the 19th century.

The map and layout was created in ArcGIS Pro and the final texture and effects were applied in Photoshop.