More to a Map than Meets the Eye

I love maps. 

 

Unfolding a map, laying it out on the table or floor, leaning over it and tracing the different paths, the course of rivers and streams, and identifying the other physical features builds to the anticipation of the planned walk.  Scanning a map with my eyes, knowing that the next day my footsteps will be in contact with that ground, know directly the nuances of the landscape, adds to the excitement.  Maps may stop you from getting lost but you can also get lost in a map.  They are not purely functional things but are like books, a source of idle pleasure, learning and appreciation for the wonders of the earth.  They give lessons in geography and geology, in natural and human history.

 

Maps can be perused during long winter days when the weather forces you to stay indoors and without leaving the house, you can wander about the hills and valleys, through towns and along riverbanks.  They can take you outdoors to places you have never been to envisage the scene in your imagination, invite you to remember and walk again along paths previously trod and touch the summit cairns of mountains already climbed. Maps are invitations to venture anew and to look backwards, to step outside and to turn inwards. They can be enjoyed alone or shared with others, indoors or outdoors, in winter or summer, day or night.

When I am following the paths, tracks and contours of a map,whether with my eyes or feet, I am blissfully happy.  Yes, maps do a lot, and there is much more to them than meets the eye.

 

Of course, I am not alone in my love of maps - that great walker and writer, Robert Louis Stephenson, also shared the same passion.

"I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to believe.  The names, the shapes of the woodlands, the courses of the roads and rivers, the prehistoric footsteps of man still distinctly traceable up hill and down dale, the mills, and the ruins, the ponds and the ferries, perhaps the ‘Standing Stone’ or the ‘Druidic Circle’ on the heath; here is the inextinguishable fund of interest for any man with eyes to see or two-pence worth of imagination to understand with!"

(Robert Louis Stephenson)