In Montreal on August 22nd of 2016, Justine Charlene St-Amour, 24, was riding her bicycle when she was hit by a truck. The young woman died on the scene. After the incident, volunteers painted her bike white and installed it in the place of the accident as a memorial to Justine's life. Unfortunately, Justine's ghost bike is not the only one in Montreal. Six bicycles have been installed around the city since this symbolic practice started in 2013. In this project, we co-created, with two of Justine's best friends, a map to remember her and other cyclists.

This project won Second place at the Student Illustrated Paper Competition at the 2018 American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

See our talk at the 2017 North American Cartographic Information Society in Montreal here.

Ghost on the Road: A Conceptual Approach to Mapping Montreal's Ghost Bikes Memorials

This project is based on the assumption that maps are far more than expressions of cartography—they are holders of memories. We believe that mapping Ghost Bike stories requires the mobilization of media that offer a greater opportunity to transmit emotional messages than can be done via traditional cartography.