Ever since I was a young boy, I have always had a desire to know where I am and where other things are in the world. At an early age I developed a fascination with maps. There was a world atlas at our house, and I would flip through the pages, looking at the strange and the not-so-strange names of countries and cities. I would travel the world in my mind.
While the atlas was full of maps of the world, I didn’t have a map of my neighborhood. I decided that I needed one and took it upon myself to draw my own map of the area that I lived.
I grew up on a rural road, so there was no need for me to draw a grid-work of city streets. If I did live in the city, I have a feeling I wouldn’t have needed to make a map of my area. I’m sure that one would have already existed.
The map I made showed the location of the houses on my road. It also showed the network of trails through the woods that connected the houses that had kids living in them. Many of these trails converged on old logging roads that led to more interesting places, like the lakes, ponds, streams and rivers that surrounded my boyhood home.
I never used the map to find my way around. Its real purpose, I realize now, was to put things into perspective. Where the things in my world were in relation to other things. It was an era of discovery.
My dad was an over-the-road truck driver, and in the summer I traveled a lot with him around the country. I would sit with a Rand McNally road atlas on my lap and keep track of our location as we traveled. I was his de facto navigator. He would ask how far until the next exit, rest area, or weigh station and I would quickly come up with the answer. Those trips were the real beginning of my love affair with maps.
Back in those days the school systems had fewer budget problems and they were a little more willing to try some experimental classes. One year a cartography (map-making) class was offered and I jumped on the opportunity. I’m not sure that it was ever offered before or since that time. I’m glad that it came along. It was one of the best classes that I have ever been in.
Being able to use a map properly can be very useful indeed. Orienteering skills using a map and compass can come in handy when you are in the woods and you are not quite sure how to get to where you want to go.
I was with my good friend Don on a camping trip to Grand Island in Lake Superior shortly after it was opened up to the public. We were canoeing up the west side of the island with plans to portage inland to Echo Lake on the island’s interior. While taking a break on the shore, Don pulled out his compass and the topographical map we had with us. He said that he wanted to find out our location. I asked how he planned on doing that. He then triangulated our location using Wood Island and Williams Island as reference points. It was the neatest thing I had ever seen.
I now own more maps than anyone I know. My collection is rather large and diverse. I don’t know when I officially started to collect maps; it just kind of happened. I began to acquire them and they just grew into a collection. I don’t have them cataloged or anything like that. They are tucked away in boxes and folders in my home and my garage.
I have maps of everywhere.
I used to take them out and look at them on a regular basis, but these days I don’t have much need for them.
It’s not that I don’t use maps anymore. I may be using them more than ever now. The Internet, and more specifically Google Maps and Google Earth, have become places where I spend more time than I probably should.
Nearly every day I find myself looking at Google Maps or using their “My Maps” tools to make my own maps for various reasons. A year or so ago I was introduced to the “Street View” feature. Street View allows you to look at 360-degree images of various locations around the country. It was limited to the more populated and heavily traveled areas of the country, but what a great feature! I could now actually see some of the places that had only been lines and dots before.
Over the past year, a large amount of the United States road and highway system has been added to Street View. The availability of these images gave me an idea for a project that I started working on a few weeks ago that incorporates some of those images.
I really wanted to use some images from the Upper Peninsula, but unfortunately the only areas of the U.P. featured on Street View were I-75 from St. Ignace to Sault Ste. Marie and the first few blocks of Menominee after crossing over from Wisconsin.
Yesterday, while I was messing around with Google Maps, I discovered that a great deal has changed in the last couple of weeks. To my surprise, I found that almost all of the major highways, and the streets of most cities and towns in the Upper Peninsula, have been added to Street View.
You can see an amazing amount of detail in the images. You can read street signs and the names of businesses. You might even be able to recognize your neighbor if they happened to be outside watering the lawn when the Google vehicle drove by.
You can even see that I should have mowed mine before they did.
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