More on maps

Related to the post yesterday about maps -- I brought along a GPS receiver, compass and topo maps on a trip to the Colorado canyonlands a couple of years ago. I wanted to work on reading maps, but it quickly became clear to me that experiencing a place through a map is not the same as experiencing the place. Certain areas of the brain fired when looking at the grids and topo lines and the numbers and drawing lines on the map, trying to convert the mapwork into geological features. But the map could not come close to the rich sensuousness of sitting and listening, hearing, smelling, seeing the place.

This is the difference between the network diagram and the process (I hesitate to even use "network" as synonym for "process", as "network" suggests that a derivation or abstraction has already taken place). "Knowing the process" versus knowing the map.

But... Last February my brother and I were tramping around the Desert National Wildlife Refuge north of Las Vegas. He could look at a topo, and project a hint of what would be there. He could read a map. In its proper place, the map was a powerful tool. In itself not a complete knowledge of what was being represented, but contributing a piece to the puzzle of understanding.

jd