About Inklands

Drawn from real places

Destination coloring books celebrating Canada's most unforgettable places — for the people who've been there, and the people who want to go.

How it started

A motorhome, a dog, and three years on the Pacific

Inklands grew from a simple idea: that a place worth visiting is worth drawing. Our founders drove a 1974 motorhome across Canada and ended up in Ucluelet — a small fishing village on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island. They stayed for three years, living at the campground with their Great Pyrenees, Fenrir.

The community there believed in the project before it existed. Local business owners kept saying it: someone should make a coloring book of this place. So they made one. Ucluelet was first. Then Tofino. Then Vancouver Island. Then Toronto. The idea had legs.

Today, Inklands makes destination coloring books for people who connect with places. Every book is designed around a real location — built to be colored, given as gifts, or kept as a record of somewhere you've been or somewhere you want to go.

Vancouver Island coastline on a misty morning — real place photography by Ivor Forrest that inspired the Inklands coloring book series
📷 Ivor Forrest / ivorforrest.photography
The work

Real places. Real illustrations.

Each Inklands book starts with the destination — its landmarks, character, and the specific details that make it worth visiting. Ivor Forrest, a photographer based on Vancouver Island, shoots the locations: the light, the texture, the way that place looks and feels on the ground.

Kenzie leads the illustration process using custom artwork and AI-assisted techniques — the tools vary by book and by what each place deserves. We're transparent about this: destination coloring books require depth, and authenticity matters more than any particular method.

The result is always the same goal: illustrations specific enough that you can color Cox Bay and know you're coloring Cox Bay. Every location is named. Every book is built to connect you with the real place it depicts.

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Illustration

Kenzie builds each illustration using custom artwork and AI-assisted techniques. The goal is always specificity — Cox Bay should look like Cox Bay, not a generic beach.

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Photography

Ivor Forrest's location photography informs every book. His work lives at ivorforrest.photography.

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Place

We only make books about places we know. The west coast of Vancouver Island is home base. Every other destination gets the same thorough attention before a single illustration begins.

Why coloring books

A different kind of travel experience

01

You've been there

Coloring a page from somewhere you've visited is a different experience than buying a fridge magnet. It takes time. It reconnects you with the details of the place. It's active, not passive.

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02

You want to go

Our books also work as travel guides in disguise. Flip through Tofino or Ucluelet and you get a curated view of what's worth seeing — every illustration is a real place with a real name.

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03

It lasts

A physical coloring book — printed from a PDF — is something you keep. It lives on a shelf. You hand it to someone. It does the work of memory in a way a photo doesn't quite manage.

Where we're going

Canada, one destination at a time

We started on the west coast of Vancouver Island because that's home. The Nuu-chah-nulth peoples have called this coastline home for thousands of years, and that context shapes how we approach each place — with respect for the territory and the communities within it.

From there, we're building the broadest collection of Canadian destination coloring books around. Every major city, every iconic landscape, every stretch of coast and mountain and prairie that makes this country worth knowing.

"Creativity beyond just a coloring page — a reflection of your experience there."

Inklands books are made with deep respect for the Indigenous nations whose territories these places sit within. That context is part of every book we make.

Ucluelet Available now
Tofino Available now
Vancouver Island Available now
Toronto Available now
Big, Weird & Wonderful Coming soon
More of Canada In progress
What we believe

Made intentionally

Destination-first

Every book starts with the place, not the art. We research destinations thoroughly and only illustrate what's actually there — real landmarks, real character, real detail.

Places that deserve attention

Every illustration is a real location with a real story. We want you to visit these places, learn their names, and understand why they matter.

Honest about our tools

Kenzie combines custom artwork and AI-assisted illustration depending on what each book needs. We're transparent about this — you deserve to know how a product is made.

Rooted in place

Started on Vancouver Island, shaped by its communities, landscapes, and the nations whose territories these are. We don't take that lightly.

Follow the journey

New destinations, behind-the-scenes from the illustration process, and a free coloring page just for signing up.

🎨 Free coloring page — Wild Pacific Trail, Tofino