Cartographer Margaret Wickens Pearce named 2025 MacArthur Fellow

Margaret Wickens Pearce is a cartographer foregrounding Indigenous understandings of land and place in maps that visualize Native Peoples’ knowledge, history, and stories. She has worked extensively with UMaine’s Canadian-American Center.

The MacArthur Fellowship is a $800,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more. 

Pearce’s most recent project with the Center is The Cold at Inuit Nunangat, a two-map set. “Protecting the Cold” portrays ways Inuit and their relatives steward the cold on Inuit homelands in Canada, and in so doing, keep the earth in balance for all beings. “Destroying the Cold” portrays the ways we southerners outside of Inuit Nunangat interfere with their stewardship responsibilities, and in so doing, interfere with Inuit self-determination and the balance of the earth.

You can learn more about The Cold at Inuit Nunangat and sign up for publication notification here. To learn more about the MacArthur Fellowship and the other 2025 winners, click here.

(Photo credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)