prairie point

maps

"Advice on the Prairie" by William Tylee Ranney, 1853

A map is a wondrous thing. It enables you to see not only where you are now but where you are wanting to go and everything in between. But to make a map someone needs to be able to visualize where you are in relation to everything else. In this day, that’s easy to do as long as you are only talking about the physical world.

But most of the places we would like to get to are not as easily pictured and there are not always superhighways leading to them. We have to fall back on the equivalent of hearsay and opinion, which when they are available at all may not be clear or reliable.

This week's Ecotone topic is "maps and place"