The Things We Carry
The Case for Maps
By Tamia Nelson
tamia@paddling.net
February 28, 2006
Not too long ago, maps — maps printed on
paper, that is — could be found in almost every paddler's kit. (And the
paddlers who didn't carry maps didn't stay found for very long.) Then came
the microchip revolution. Now you can carry detailed quads for a whole
continent in a plastic box that's smaller than an airport paperback, and the
very same box will put you on the map at any time of day or night,
even if you can't see a single landmark. To someone like me, who grew up
when television was still in its infancy, all this is little short of
magical, and it's no surprise that a growing number of paddlers are
succumbing to the spell, abandoning paper for plastic altogether. But not
me. The magic in the plastic box will depart pretty quickly when the
batteries weaken. Or when (that's when, mind you, not if) salt
water gets past the seals. So I still carry paper maps and charts in my
pack, along with an orienteering
compass. They've got magic in them, too. The difference? Their magic
doesn't depend on batteries and microcircuits.
Put it down to creeping old-fossilhood if you like. You won't be far
wrong. I've been fascinated by maps ever since my grandparents gave me a
wooden puzzle made up of blocks in the shape of each of the 48 United
States. (No, that's not a typo. Alaska and Hawaii were still Territories.)
When assembled, the blocks formed a map of the country, with each state
capital printed on its block. I memorized all of the capitals, and my
grandfather — who'd prospered as a traveling salesman during the worst
years of the Great Depression, staying at the best hotels while many of his
generation were standing in breadlines — had a story to tell about most
of them. Before long I, too, had caught the traveling bug.
That was my first map, and despite its crudity it left a lasting
impression. Soon I was collecting every map I could get my hands on. The
hundreds of National Geographic magazines in my grandfather's library
were a particularly rich source, though friends and relatives also gave me
the oil company road maps they'd picked up in their travels. (This was in
the days when many gas station attendants still wore uniforms, road maps
were free for the asking, and you could "fill 'er up" for not much more than
the cost of a single gallon of post-Peak
gasoline.) As my collection grew, I spent countless hours poring over each
of my maps, tracing roads, rivers, and coastlines
with my fingers, and trying to imagine what I'd see if I were there. On
family trips, I'd follow the route on a road map while my father drove,
watching as each kink in the thin red or blue line opened up new vistas of
farm fields, woodlands, mountain peaks, or rushing rivers. Tiny dots were
revealed as bustling hamlets, with bakeries and diners, general stores and
barber shops, full-service garages and schools. It was, literally, an
eye-opening experience. Up until then, I'd been lamenting the fact that I
didn't have a single treasure map in my entire collection. No more. These
road trips made me realize that every map was a treasure map,
pointing the way to hidden riches.
Later I began to explore the Adirondack backcountry. And that's when I
discovered topographic maps. My other
grandfather had all the quads for "his" Adirondacks tacked to the wall
of his cabin. Here was treasure, indeed. Every beaver
pond, trout stream, and swamp was
mapped, and most were named. The quads even showed me the way to lost towns,
their once-lively streets now rapidly reverting to forest. They also led me
to overgrown cemeteries, forgotten battlefields, and hidden caves, where an
occasional knapped flint projectile point or rusting oil lantern reminded me
that I was only the latest of many explorers. Noticing my interest in his
maps, Grandad gave me a compass and a set of quads all my own. Then he
showed me how to get along without them. Grandad knew the wooded hills
around his home like he knew the furrows and creases in his own face. So he
marked my maps and sent me out on treasure hunts of another sort, telling me
to follow tiny streams to their sources and walk sinuous ridges till they
subsided into secret valleys. And he made me a promise: When I'd walked,
waded, and paddled enough miles, and gotten to know "every goddam' windfall,
boulder, and beaver dam" in his Adirondacks, I could tuck my maps safely
away in my
rucksack and never need to pull them out again, except maybe once in a
great while, if I unaccountably found myself "a little confused." That was
how Grandad operated, at any rate, removing his maps from his pack only when
a sport wanted to see where they were — and then only when the weather
smiled, or when Grandad could shield the precious quad from whatever was
falling from the sky that day with just the wide brim of his hat.
The rest of the time his quads were kept safe, wrapped in an oilcloth roll.
It worked for him. But as my travels took me further and further from
Grandad's hills, it didn't always work for me. Finally, in the perpetual
drizzle of an alpine valley in the North Cascades, I learned the benefits of
a waterproof map case. It was…
Nothing Fancy
But it did the job. Taking my lead from some of the old hands in my
climbing party, I folded my quad into a rough square, traced the day's route
in soft pencil directly on the paper, and slipped the annotated map into a
Ziploc® bag. Then I reinforced the ends of the narrow strip beyond the
bag's tongue-and-groove closure with duct tape, punched two holes in the
tape, and threaded a lanyard
through the holes. On the trail, the lanyard went over my head, while the
quad rested on my chest, ready to be consulted at the first hint of
"confusion." And wonder of wonders, my maps stayed clean, dry, and safe,
despite a month spent traversing high-altitude snowfields, where sweltering,
sunny days were followed almost immediately by freezing nights, gale-force
winds, and lashing rain.
Simple, cheap, effective.… Who could ask for more? Well, me, for
one. Freezer bags don't really inspire confidence, do they? And they're not
exactly elegant. There came a time when I wanted…
Something Better
The first improved map case I came across started life as a liner for a
dry bag. I still have it. It looks like a freezer bag on steroids: a heavy
poly envelope about the size of a pillowcase, closed with a giant plastic
slide clamp. And it's big enough to hold several dozen full-size quads or
charts. Of course, unless you're Paul Bunyan, you won't want to wear it
around your neck, but it's easily tucked under the crisscross lashings that
keep your waterproof
packs in your canoe, or under the deck lashings on your kayak, where it
can double as a chart table underway. You can also roll the case around the
clamp and store it below decks. It could even be left to slosh back and
forth in the bilge of a swamped
canoe. I'm not tempted by this, however. It could just as easily slosh
out, never to be seen again.
Bombproof? Pretty much. But a little too big for use on the trail —
and not too handy in a small boat, either. I decided I needed something else
for my working quads, and I thought I'd found the answer on the shelves of a
local surplus
outlet: a pilot's kneeboard, a sort of clipboard that straps to your
thigh just above the knee. After all, pilots, like paddlers, seldom have a
hand free for their maps. So I figured that a kneeboard would be just the
ticket for canoeing. But I'd overlooked one very important point. Pilots
don't often have to worry about breaking waves when they're in the cockpit.
Paddlers do. And the kneeboard just wasn't up to the job. It also required
that I fold my maps till they weren't much bigger than a notecard. Plenty
good enough if you're working with a 1:500,000 sectional aeronautical chart,
I suppose. Not so good if you're trying to do a fast triangulation on three
distant peaks using a 1:50,000 quad. Soon I was back to using a freezer bag.
Then a geologist friend gave me a few quads he'd coated with a brush-on
waterproofing compound. It seemed like a good idea at first, but the
compound made the maps stiff and hard to fold. Worse yet, it started to peel
away almost immediately, tearing the paper in the process. Not good. Not
good at all. Next, I tried laminating. Even worse. So I looked for maps
printed on plastic or waterproof paper, and I found a few. They were pretty
good maps, too. In fact, one was among
the best I've seen. But many of the places I wanted to go were off the
map, so to speak. It was plain paper or nothing. Back to freezer bags again.
And that was that. Until recently, anyway, when the catalogs suddenly
blossomed forth with…
Better Ideas
Most of these are just variations on familiar themes, of course. My big
plastic pillowcase has morphed into a variety of heavy-duty cases with
resealable waterproof closures, made in a wide range of sizes, from full
chart to playing card. Some are guaranteed waterproof down to 200 feet.
(I've never paddled at this depth, I admit, but if I ever do, it's good to
know my maps will stay dry.) Some have straps, hooks, or grommets in the
corners — a great idea for keeping your maps attached to your boat in a gale.
Others are designed to hang from thwarts (or from the handlebar of a bike, if
that's how you plan
to get to the put-in). Still others fold up like a wallet, with pockets
for a palette of colored pens, a notebook, and even a compass. And if all
this weren't enough, waterproof deck bags are now made with built-in chart
windows, another idea that may have been borrowed from touring cyclists,
whose 'bar bags have had them for half a century or more.
Then there are the rigid waterproof boxes, beginning with the heavy (and
now rare) steel ammo
can, and culminating in an entire armory of color-coordinated plastic
dry boxes, complete with hasps for padlocks, purge valves, and foam liners.
These are great for storing the maps you don't need today, particularly on
Big Trips, but
they're not much use underway. Two hints: No matter how robust the
manufacturer's guarantee, check the seals on all your waterproof boxes
— and your bags, too — before each trip. And make sure every boat
carries a complete set of maps and charts for the entire trip. (Solo
paddlers would be wise to carry one or more small-scale maps showing
their entire route in a PFD pocket at all times.) Costly? Yes. But the price
will seem small if you've ever watched your only set of maps disappear in a
rapids, two hundred miles and twenty portages from your pick-up point.
At times like that, the word "priceless" acquires real meaning.
I've come full circle. When you think about it, a map case only needs to
do a few things, but it needs to do them well. I want a case that keeps my
maps clean and dry, and I want to be able to look at them without removing
them and exposing them to the assaults of dirt and water. If a case does
those things, it's giving me all that I need. I like to wear my compass
or carry it in a pocket, and my spare pens travel with my field
journal in a waterproof box or bag. So guess what? I've found nothing
better for my working map than a one-gallon freezer bag. (Press-fit
zip-closures only, please. The sliders I've tried can't be trusted away from
the kitchen. I always carry plenty of spares, too.) And what do I use as a
storage case for the maps I won't want today? My ancient pillowcase-sized
heavy plastic envelope with the clumsy slide clamp, that's what. It's the
familiar KISS principle in action. These two old warriors certainly aren't
elegant, but they do the job — and they're cheap, into the bargain. To
my mind, that makes either one the perfect case for my maps.
Copyright © 2006 by Verloren Hoop Productions. All rights
reserved.