We love maps

“Maps tell many kinds of stories. They can summarize a situation, trace a route, and show change over time. They can examine causes and effects and reveal interrelationships. They can help people make plans, predict or model the future, and support decisions.” (Telling Stories with Maps: A White Paper, esri.com)

We love map stories! The LRS classroom (see photos) is an expression of that. Some stories are written by the likes of Sylvester Sibly, a surveyor in  the 1830s that trod across all of Door County, showing wetlands, stream crossings, vegetation character (his maps are housed in Madison at the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands and available online). The Original Vegetation of Wisconsin (aka “the Finley map”) is based on those records. Complex stories of soil maps, bedrock maps, groundwater maps, wetland maps are found at  Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. Its director, State Geologist Ken Bradbury, is one of LRS guest faculty in July. 

Maps are invaluable in ecological restoration planning and implementation. Maps can be beautiful and effective visual communication tools – a way to convey complex information in understandable ways. The Crossroads’ Ecological Restoration plan (found at the Land Restoration School Science page) includes several maps.

One of the 2022 LRS cohort, Andrew Umentum, is also a map-maker who sees things from a fresh angle (see Andrew’s website). Two of Andrew’s maps are in the LRS classroom. They remind me of  the well-known ‘Big Block of Cheese' episode of The West Wing, where Cartographers for Social Equality explain that “using the Mercator map projection over-represents the countries of the North to the detriment of those of the South”.

But really, we just love maps.

The Land Restoration School classroom at Crossroads at Big Creek