Here’s a new and different way to envision a watershed. Cartographer Daniel Huffman makes maps of river systems in a style usually associated with subway maps. His map of the Mississippi River system of course includes the St. Croix, in what would be the beginning of the line:
Huffman says about the project:
I wanted to create a series of maps that gives people a new way to look at rivers: a much more modern, urban type of portrayal. So I turned to the style of urban transit maps pioneered by Harry Beck in the 1930s for the London Underground. Straight lines, 45º angles, simple geometry.
You can buy prints of the map on his website in either small or large sizes. Ten percent of the proceeds will go to conservation organizations working in the Mississippi River system.
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4 responses to “The St. Croix subway”
These look really cool. I wish there was one of Minnesota like the Michigan map.
Yep, I like it a lot. I bet he’d make such a map for a small fee… 🙂 BTW – Some work yet to do on comments, I see.
I’m not really a fan of the subway maps for river systems. It enables us to think of dynamic natural systems as if they were man-made.
That’s a totally fair point. I would say that the artist’s point in creating these maps was not to portray river systems as man-made, but a) as human-manipulated and b) as systems.
A lot of people don’t think about what’s downstream today, but can read a subway map. Water moves, which in our alienated lives (especially in cities), is becoming a forgotten point. And what we do (again, especially in our cities, though also certainly in rural, agricultural areas) impacts rivers.
Thanks for the comment!