Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Keywords Space-time cartograms
Wilderness
Visualizing journeys
1 Introduction
Cartography does not merely describe a landscape's qualities. Rather, by playing
an instrumental role in how landscape is conceptualized, it creates them (Turnbull
2000
; Cosgrove
2003
; Wood and Fels
2008
; Dodge et al.
2009
). Cartographer J.
Brian Harley asserts that, despite an appearance of mimetic truth, the map ''is not a
mirror of nature'' (
1989
, p 234). Instead maps are devices whose spatial precision
and technical sophistication disguises their culturally-bound structure and content.
Hence maps should be considered 'slippery', 'dangerous' and 'unreliable' and
therefore treated with caution (Harley
2001
, p 34).
Harley uses this critique to highlight cartography's hegemonic outcomes;
however landscape architect James Corner, considering these same qualities,
draws attention to the generative potential of maps to elicit innovative qualities of
landscape. Because a landscape image is neither 'neutral nor passive', the agency
of mapping can be enlisted to intentionally shape the capacity to perceive,
understand and direct landscape. Hence, for the landscape architect mapping is a
creative method by which landscapes can be designed. Corner considers images of
landscape must develop beyond the pictorial and instead ''emphasize the experi-
ential intimacies of engagement, participation and use over time'' (
1999a
, p 159).
By visualising a range of landscape's eidetic qualities, cartography can act as
''fundamental stimuli to creativity and invention; they do not represent the reality
of an idea but rather inaugurate its possibility'' (Ibid, p 163).
This study investigates the relationship between the cartography of forested
national parks and related values of wilderness. It is the capacity of cartography to
create, modify and subsume landscape qualities that has led Raymond Dasmann to
reflect: ''sometimes I wonder if our final act of wilderness destruction did not lie in
designating formal wilderness areas for preservation. In defining the boundaries,
writing the rules and publicizing the results, did we not remove the last magic and
make us realize that the remote and unknown was available to all'' (quoted in
Molloy
1983
, p 16).
Dasmann is suggesting that a cartographic practice changed the very qualities
of wilderness it was attempting to record and preserve. We must ask, what might
the instrumentality of cartography offer in modifying attitudes to wilderness, and
how might alternative cartographies prompt different engagements with, and
conceptualizations of, wilderness landscapes?
