This July, visitors from across the state—and even across the country—made the trek to the Robinson Map Library to see a unique set of maps.

The journey to the Fantastic Worlds exhibit began in March 2025, when Mark Fonstad—UW–Madison alum and current Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon—spent his spring break starting a lengthy project digitizing his mother’s original, hand-drawn maps.

His mother, Karen Wynn Fonstad, was a prominent fantasy cartographer who combined literary detective work with a love of detail to produce The Atlas of Middle-earth, the official geographic guide to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, in 1981. She drew Mount Doom, Rivendell, the Shire, Minas Tirith, and more—and when she had drawn everything in Tolkien’s world, she moved on to other fantasy worlds, including Anne McCaffrey’s Pern and the popular Dungeons & Dragons setting Dragonlance.

Karen Wynn Fonstad was a prolific mapmaker; after that spring break week, Mark Fonstad realized that he had many, many more maps to scan. He needed more time. That’s when the Department of Geography offered to host him as a visiting scholar during the summer of 2025.

Working in the beautiful, sunlit Robinson Map Library had given Fonstad another idea, too; he wanted to share his mother’s work-in-progress sketches with the public. So as the summer moved along, he started to carefully select maps to include in a public exhibition. He also worked with members of the department (Jaime Martindale, Map and GIS Librarian; Janelle Greene, Communications Specialist; Alicia Cowart, UW Cartography Lab Creative Director; Professor Robert Roth; Assistant Professor Bill Limpisathian) to create a fully rounded exhibition that explained his mother’s techniques and her impact on generations of cartographers.

During the last two weeks in July, a large number of visitors made their way to Science Hall to view the Fantastic Worlds exhibit. Visitors added over 300 entries to the event guest book, with many offering wonderful anecdotes and thoughtful comments on how much they enjoyed their experience.

Fonstad offered two public presentations during the 2-week run of the exhibit and both were very well attended, both in-person and online. The first public presentation on July 23 was in the large historic lecture hall in room 180 of Science Hall. Professor of Geography Robert Roth offered an introduction and helped facilitate questions from the audience. Focused on Karen Wynn Fonstad’s life and work, this presentation aimed to give people an idea of how she began her journey with fantasy mapping and offered visuals of some of the most popular works. Roughly 75 attendees braved the summer heat and many talked more in-depth with Mark following the presentation.

On July 30, the UW–Madison Cartography Lab hosted Mark during a standing room only Map Chat presentation sponsored by the Department of Geography’s GIS Professional Programs (GISPP). This talk was a deeper dive into the actual cartography and methods used by Wynn Fonstad.

The Fantastic Maps public presentation and Map Chat lecture are available to view on YouTube.

We would like to offer our sincerest thanks to Professor Mark Fonstad for making the summer of 2025 in Science Hall so memorable!