In Edinburgh’s National Library of Scotland, an exhibition on map-making and the Bartholomew dynasty has been on show. It was a superb display of techniques and products from six generations of the Scottish cartographic family whose work has, in many ways, helped to define how you and I interpret the landscape. I’m using this post not to advertise the event, but to explore the legacy of maps and how their information hinders or promotes exploration. This will mean some unpacking of the concertina-folds of the past, but our topic is perhaps more relevant as we scroll into the future.
Bartholomew’s had a seven-year engraving apprenticeship, a nine-step printing process and innumerable connections with cycle touring clubs that voluntarily sent in updates to roads and buildings. The company modelled every continent, diversified into motoring in the thirties and was linked with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. It co-existed with rivals AA and the Ordnance Survey (OS), which offered different products. But in its 200 years, the biggest changes to Bartholomew’s business occurred in the past twenty. The internet, big data and the mobile phone have shifted everything.
Nick Williams
Pocket Mountain Guide
Ten years ago, I worked as a guidebook writer. The 300-odd maps in my works were produced using the most appropriate techniques of the time: personal research; careful marking up of ex-copyright 1948 OS sheets; and the skills of award-winning cartographer Don Williams. If we started the project now, our methods and the final product might be very different. In 2013, readers require personalised, multi-format, ubiquitous information. It makes the old methods look very quaint.
There’s no doubt that technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives very fast. I want to talk about this in terms of our relationship with the outdoors. Three questions came to mind as I toured the library display and admired some of Bartholomew’s conceptions, like the reduced OS map to Scotland and the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. First, could we become less curious since ‘everything’ seems to be known? Second, would we become more risk-averse because formerly unperceived dangers are documented? Third, will we get out less because there’s so much fun from looking at places on our screens?
London Tube Map
We should look back to answer our changing inquisitiveness. Representation of topographical features predates writing by a long time. In 2000, the BBC reported on the Ice Age star map, dated to 16 thousand years BCE. Other cave art and tablets age map-making a further eight millennia. To understand the significance, it helps to deconstruct the process: tools or memory commit a view to another surface; artistic refinement renders output to suit purpose (think of Harry Beck’s London tube map); finally, the product is used to plan journeys, boundaries and interactions. Those are all advanced skills and it appears our ancestors kept exploring, learning to navigate by the stars, by chronometry, by magnetic needle. And we haven’t really changed. We shan’t want to stop visiting The States because we know it’s there, even though every square metre can be seen in technicolour on our laptops.
Carol Dweck
Author of Mindset
This leads to my second question on responding to risk. The decision to act one way or another (or to postpone decision) on any perceived danger seems aligned with attitude, not with knowledge. My own take on ‘risk’ is that it is a neutral term, neither good or bad. Instead, it represents time and resources and the opportunity to fill that time or use those resources with activity that may have positive or negative implications, or else to do nothing. In the past, the world was filled with far more unknown dangers than it is now, such that you could be killed on stepping out of the yurt/cave/crannog. So we should be far more go-getting than before. It’s fear of failure, of litigation and of reputational damage that stops us from acting. Ultimately, it comes down to doing, rather than just thinking. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, has relevant material on this subject. She talks about ‘closed’ and ‘growth’ viewpoints and on how to move from one to the other to enable success
My final question: will we get out less because there’s so much fun from looking at locations remotely? The richness of the electronic media experience now (and that which is yet to come) may be a threat to our wellbeing. I have to consciously leave my smartphone in the house when I go on an adventure (and take a cheap phone for emergency use). The human need for contact and information, all contained in a palm-sized device that blends functionality and aesthetics is more temporarily fulfilling than the combination of fresh air, real experiences and the chance to create memories to last into old age. At some point, we have to switch off the inputs, zip up our bags and find the exit.
Open Map Project
I was disappointed to see that the billboard advertising for this year’s Outdoor Pursuits Show featured a young climber on an artificial wall. The activity portrayed was indoors gymnastics on resin holds. Yes, this gets climbers arguably fitter than bushwhacking to the base of damp crags, and you can learn skills and teamwork. But it’s not ‘outdoors’, where you can get thoroughly soaked and learn to shrug it off, or attempt to take the path less travelled, or make decisions with the light dwindling and have to touch the trees and rocks to find your way back.
Essentially, it all comes down to the time we have on the planet and how, where, and with what thoughts we occupy that time. If we actually spend it inside while we dream of doing something different, our aspirations are not achieved. Information is there and allows us to make choices: those may be easier to make because there’s more detail, or harder, because there’s more to filter.
As the exhibition closes, I learn of a new set of maps published by Scottish Natural Heritage, depicting key wilderness areas across the country. The aims are to protect wild land and to help guide those interested in visiting and studying some unique environments. These maps do not say that you will get lost, tired or hungry because the locations are miles from civilisation. The ink passes no judgement on your ability to cope. The contours are without prejudice. Maps only describe that which is known about landscape. It’s up to you whether you go out and explore, relax at a different pace or try to find yourself. That should at least be a step in the right direction.
Nick Williams may be known best for his Pocket Mountains guides to the Highlands and Islands, but he has also trained as a mountaineering instructor and has thirty years of experience climbing all over the world. He organised the first international expedition to post-Soviet Kazakhstan and written a memoir, Jagged Red Line, which describes adventure and trauma in the Caucasus. In his professional life, Nick works in corporate communications and information strategy. He speaks French, Mandarin and Russian.
www.nickwilliams.org // @jaggedredline