Google Alerts are funny sometimes. A short item in the Tumbler Ridge News — Tumbler Ridge is a remote small town in northeastern British Columbia — about how a local writer contributed to a backroad atlas that won a cartography award would not be postworthy in itself, but it gives me my first opportunity to post about the Backroad Mapbooks series of recreational atlases. It’s also my first opportunity to post about the award — namely, the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping/Cartography and Geographic Information Society Annual Map Design Competition. The Northern B.C. Backroad Mapbook won the best-of-category award in the books/atlas category; the rest of the winners from this year are listed here. Past winners may be found here; I bet you’ll recognize some of the names.

• Buy Northern B.C. Backroad Mapbook at Amazon.com