Cartography:
car·tog·ra·phy /kärˈtägrəfē/
Noun: The science
or practice of drawing maps.
Synonyms: mapping
I, Vanessa Hahn, am a cartophile.
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| Old World Map in my Entryway |
My fascination with maps started when I was a little girl. My mother married my stepdad Bill. He didn’t like to stay in the same place for
very long. He is like that to this
day. We moved around a lot during the
time they were married. We lived as far
east as Texas, as far north as Washington, as far south as Mexico, and all over
the State of California. My mother and
stepdad divorced when I was 9 years old, and we relocated back to my hometown
of Santa Maria, California. The constant
state of upheaval inspired both a wanderlust and a desire for permanence. I saw myself in my own home with a family,
but I also saw myself traveling. It was
at this time that my old globe became a focal point.
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| This globe to the left is the closest I could find to the globe I had. |
We had an old globe that moved around with us. Back then, I lived in a fantasy world of
books and my imagination. I would twirl
the globe around its base, point out my finger to stop it, and wherever my
finger landed, that’s where my story would take. (Honestly, I probably spent a long time
spinning the globe WHILE reading some of my books.) I remember writing a short story in sixth
grade where my protagonist was going to travel to France from England to slay
the last of the dragons. I found the
ports of Portsmouth and Le Havre on my globe and wrote them into the story as
the places where he would take a boat to travel to France.
I love cartography as well.
I don’t practice any more, but at 8 years old, it was a regular pastime. I would take a piece of paper and spend hours
drawing the shorelines of various land bodies.
I wanted to get the proportions just right so it looked exactly like the
image on the globe. I would incorporate
these drawings into my stories, emulating the maps Tolkien created for Lord of
the Rings. I wish I still had copies of
these stories. Most have them has not survived into my late 20s.
When my stepdad Bill and mother separated and ultimately
divorced, I would receive letters from him that recounted tales of world travel
and meeting famous people. As a child, I
believed my dad to be as worldly as Indiana Jones. I would look to see if I
could find the city where he lived on my globe or in any of the atlases I had
in my school books. (I later found out
that he did not travel to all the places he said he did.)
Maps will continue to inspire a host of emotions in me. I will continue to collect them. I only recently stopped because I told myself
that I would not collect any more until I get the two incredible world maps I
have rolled up framed and hung. A
special mention should go to David Imus,
creator of the award-winning The Essential Geography of the United States of
America (article). Previous winners of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS)’s award have been National Geographic (three times), the Central Intelligence
Agency Cartography Center, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Mr. Imus’ love of maps and over 6,000 hours
of work have paid off and hopefully inspired a lot of younger
cartographers. See it here.
1. 1) The Map & Atlas Museum is relatively nearby,
and I still haven’t been there. It’s
located at 7825 Fay Ave, Suite LL-A, The Merrill Lynch Building, La Jolla, CA
92037; info@lajollamapmuseum.org. Jarrod and I are planning a trip.
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