On May 11, 1899, Karl Creelman set out from Truro, Nova Scotia, to become the first Canadian to ride a bicycle around the world. He came home two years, three months, and twenty-four days later, having done it.
More than 120 years later, after five years of research, Louise Trotter of Nova Scotia followed Karl's route around the world with a camera, documenting every leg in the weekly Karl Chronicles.
About Karl
Karl rode west across North America, then through Australia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, Egypt, Europe, and Great Britain before returning home in 1901.
His journey survives in unusual depth: newspaper coverage across multiple papers, forty-three letters to his younger sister Mattie, and a leather-bound postmark book of 170 pages. It carries over nine hundred stamps and 153 signatures in more than thirteen languages, gathered from postmasters and officials along his route.
When Karl returned to Canada, he gave a series of lectures about his travels. Newspaper accounts describe him using magic lantern pictures, an early projector, to share photographs from the road.
About Louise
I found Karl by accident, on a mural in Truro. I spent years researching him in the archives, then followed his trail around the world, staying as true as possible to his original route and stopping in the places he documented. I photographed what I found and wrote about it in the Karl Chronicles: 255 weekly posts over five years, concluding in January 2026.
The towns Karl visited held significance, and researching their history led me to unfamiliar facets of the past. Both our journeys were shaped by national borders, politics, wars, disease, pandemics, and infrastructure, of different scales and significance across the years between us.
Following Karl around the world was a journey through time, and a tribute to one of the first adventurers who set out to see it.
📌 Did you know?
The Karl Journey is officially registered as an expedition with the Royal Geographical Society.
Around the World
Karl’s route in Green | Louise’s route in Purple
What’s Next
Twice Around the World
The manuscript of Twice Around the World is complete. The book runs Karl's journey alongside my own: two Nova Scotians on the same route, 125 years apart.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
My entry on Karl Creelman is submitted, and currently in editorial process for Volume XV.
Talks
I've spoken about Karl at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, the Colchester Historeum, and the Canadian Industrial Heritage Centre in Brantford. Upcoming: "Following Karl Around the World," ALLways Learning at Acadia University, March 12, 2027.
Karl's Travelography: Postcards from Around the World
Only one postcard from Karl to Mattie survives. In this exhibition, now in development, it lends its form to the rest of his archive: his letters and dispatches, presented as postcards he did not send. Each work pairs a photograph of a place as I found it with a facsimile postcard carrying Karl's own words, a date, and a stamp from his journey. Real words, a real route, a fabricated postcard.