aka “Maps 101”

I’m lucky to be alive. Not because I survived some deadly disease or natural disaster. I’m lucky to be alive because I thought my friends were going to kill me and leave my carcass for bears to scavenge. I thought this because that’s exactly what I would have done.

Months before these morbid thoughts, I’d stumbled across a “map” of northern Wisconsin and da U.P. (the upper peninsula of Michigan). Whilst perusing the map, two things immediately struck me. #1 – there appeared to be a large road-less area along the shore of the vast inland sea known as Lake Superior that virtually demanded to be explored. #2 – there also was a thin blue line through the middle of that road-less area, marking a stream flowing north into Superior, ready to lead the way. The almost complete lack of detail on the map, somehow did not strike me as relevant to my dreams of exploration. This minor omission will became important later.

Somehow I was able to convince two of my friends that this was an adventure worth pursuing. I also, somehow, managed to convince my parents to entrust me with the family car. Even more amazing, I managed to convince three sets of parents that I knew what I was doing and that nothing bad could possibly happen to three sixteen year old boys wandering around a northern forest. I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong? Well, gentle reader, I am about to tell you. When we plunged into the forest along the creek that was to serve as our guide, several things became immediately apparent.

1. Our rather vague two dimensional map did not accurately depict the severely three dimensional landscape. Countless gullies, valleys, nay…canyons flowed into our little creek at right angles. We spent as much time climbing up and down the steeply sloping landscape as we did moving north.
2. The green on the map meant to signify vegetation did not come close to conveying the impenetrable nature of the jungle. (Think pith helmeted explorers wielding machetes).  We actually had a machete – and used it.
3. “Beyond here be dragons.” This was really not the fault of the map. But one might have thought that a map maker with a single shred of human decency would have made mention of the massive clouds of miniature dragons (aka mosquitos, no-see-ums, deer flies, horse flies, etc) inhabiting that jungle. My knowledge of Dante might be a bit rusty, but I seem to recall the seventh level of hell closely resembling our bug infested little patch of forest.
4. Where my “map” really failed to provide accurate information was in the matter of distance. To be fair, it didn’t claim to offer distances, or any kind of legend at all. Still, somehow I imagined this sporty little jaunt in the woods would cover oh…eight (ish) miles…sort of more or less.

After enduring 9-10 hours of slogging through heat, hills, humidity, jungle, and hellacious flying tormentors, we figured we must be close the Superior shoreline and sweet, sweet, blessed relief. Suddenly we saw a break in the forest canopy! “This must be it!” we thought and took off running. Instead of the Lake – we broke into a clearing under a power line! “Well, this is not right! There should be a lake here!” But no – it was just a big, ugly, buzzing power line. Having completely failed to show any other land feature that we had passed all day, our map actually did show the power line – about 1/3rd of the way to the lake! Had my friends truly been pith helmeted explorers, they might have said with impeccable British accents. “Bit of bad luck that! Not to worry. Let’s have a spot of tea and carry on!” In fact, it was at this point that I began to fear for my life. The steaming piles of bear crap scattered everywhere would have given my former friends a legitimate alibi if I had turned up missing at the end of our trip.

The power line did appear to cross roads at some indeterminate distance in either direction. At random, we chose to go right. “At least,” I said cheerfully, “under the power line it will be easier walking than fighting through the jungle.” A reasonable assumption – but wrong! The clever people who built the power line decided not to ruin good forest land, but instead routed the power line through a swamp…a bear infested swamp. So we slogged through the muck and over and around piles and piles of berry filled bear scat. We took some small comfort in the knowledge (OK – irrational hope) that thus fortified, the bears wouldn’t be ravenous. As evening began to fall, and as we began thinking about finding a dry place to camp….we saw it! We stood there – the three of us – jaws hanging agape – dumbfounded. There before us – was a road!

I would have thought my companions would be happy to have found an easy means of egress. Instead (whiners) they fixated on the fact that we had spent the ENTIRE DAY, hiking through the most brutal, unforgiving terrain the U.P. had to offer – all within one half mile of a perfectly serviceable road. For the 2nd time that day, my death seemed imminent. Well EXCUSE ME! Seems to me that even a map clearly not meant to provide any useful information would show some random features – like – oh, I don’t know – a ROAD!! I’d love to have heard the discussion that led to leaving it off. “So boss, ya figure we should put dis here ROAD on da map?” “Nah! No sense cluttering up a map with all kindsa useless stuff. That’ll just confuse folks. Besides, this here green is such a pretty color – let’s just leave it, eh?”

In the end, we walked in the dark the eight miles back to our car, and then took that same road all the way to Lake Superior. We camped at a lovely little park near the shore – in a torrential thunderstorm – and woke to find that raccoons had eaten all our food. Also, the rain unleashed a plague of flies of truly biblical proportions. ( You did ask, “What could go wrong?) We did spend one more day on the shore of Lake Superior – camped next to all the cottages that also failed to appear on our map. Eventually, my friends decided they’d had enough fun.

The learning curve is cruel. There were some obvious lessons learned on this little misadventure. No – the lesson was not that I needed a better class of friends, less willing to quit at the first little hardship. Seriously, this trip taught me the value of good quality maps. You might even say (as Sharon does) that I have something of a map fetish. And let’s not even get started on my bromance with Google Earth. Sharon and our boys have heard this cautionary tale – ad nauseum. Within reason, I want to know where I am and where I’m going. Call me crazy, but something about staring death (in the form of two muddy, tired sixteen year olds) in the face…well, let’s call it a safety issue. Happy hiking (BTW: I have a map you can borrow).