The blog of artist cartographer Anton Thomas

A Tour of North America II

4/14/2020

As the first pre-ordered prints of North America start to arrive at their destinations, it's a good time for another tour of the map. Like with the last tour, there is no specific theme. From the mountains of Greenland to the Mexican desert, the Rockies to the Honduran jungle... this is a completely random journey across the map.

Here are the 12 locations this time:

1. Whisper of a grizzly - San Juan Mountains, Colorado

Almost all grizzlies in the Lower 48 are in Montana or Wyoming. They once roamed much of the American West but have mostly been driven to extinction - including in states with plenty of habitat. It was declared extinct in Colorado in 1953 but, in the rugged San Juan Mountains, rumours of grizzlies go back for decades.

A grizzly paw print marks the eastern flank of the San Juan's. The highest peak, Uncompahgre, can be seen just northwest of the paw print.

Dominating the southwest quadrant of the state, the San Juan Wilderness is vast. And many sightings throughout the years have been credible. I’m not weighing in of course - I wouldn’t have a clue! But grizzly rumors are as much a part of San Juan lore as the Durango-Silverton railroad.

I didn’t want to commit by drawing an actual griz, so I went with a pawprint. Rather than a confirmation, this is more... the whisper of a grizzly.

2. Pingualuit Crater - Nord-du-Québec

The bright blue waters of Pingualuit can be seen in far northern Québec.

The Pingualuit crater looks part-moonscape, part-ice world. An almost perfectly circular impact crater, its shape and dazzling waters are striking amongst the tundra. Pingualuit lies deep in the northern reach of Arctic Québec.

Its lake is very deep (1300 feet/400m) and holds some of the purest, most transparent water in the world. 115 feet/35m visibility has been measured here.

The Inuit have long referred to Pingualuit as the “Crystal Eye of Nunavik”, and it is a place of mystery and beauty. It’s also extremely remote - Montréal is closer to Atlanta than Pingualuit! The nearest node of civilization is the Raglan Nickel Mine (also featured), a site that has raised concerns about its impacts on the crater.

3. Big Sur, California

Hit 17 straight out of San Jose, drive over the mountains, get onto the 1 at Santa Cruz, head past Monterey, and suddenly everything changes. Spectacular Pacific coastline unfolds – forest staggered on cliffsides, ocean crashing into the continent, fog and solitude and beauty. Big Sur is breathtaking and it has a mystical place in American culture.

There is so much that could be drawn here (as with California generally), but I could only fit a few things. From top-to-bottom you’ll see the Bixby Creek Bridge, followed by McWay Falls – a waterfall that falls onto a sandy beach. Keep going and there’s the castle of newspaper magnate William Randoph Hearst, a property so lavish it will make your jaw drop. Finally, Big Sur ends around the elephant seal rookery.

The view from Nepenthe, Big Sur (a photo I took while visiting back in 2011 during my first month in the US).

4. Mapimí Silent Zone – Durango, Mexico

A mute symbol marks the Zona del Silencio.

This is a strange one. The Mapimí Silent Zone, or Zona del Silencio, is a stretch of desert in northwest Durango steeped in urban legend. In 1970, a US military test rocket was fired in Utah and went way off-course, careening all the way to Mexico where it crashed in the desert. Once the wreckage was found in Durango, the US Air Force launched a recovery operation in which they removed the debris, as well as some contaminated top soil.

Since then, rumors of extraterrestrials, paranormal activity and mutated wildlife have turned the area into something like Mexico’s Roswell. Enthusiasts known as silenciosos are seen as nuisances by some locals. Most famous is the claim that no form of communications can be received here. Radio, cellphone, anything. It’s even said compasses won’t work.

And so it is the Silent Zone, and I represented it with a universal symbol of silence – a mute.

5. Greenland's forest - Qinngua Valley, Greenland

Greenland isn’t the first place you think of having forests, and indeed – what isn’t covered by ice cap is mostly barren and rocky. But if you peer down to the southern tip of the island, you’ll notice a few trees drawn near the walls of Ketil Mountain.

In a steep valley sheltered from the harsh winds of the ice cap on one side, and the fierce Labrador Sea on the other, is the only natural forest on Greenland. The Qinngua Valley (Greenlandic for “paradise valley”).

This beautiful valley lies between 5000-foot peaks, and at a glance could be mistaken for Norway or New Zealand. While more of a thicket than a true forest, the tallest trees (downy birch and gray-leaf willow) can reach 25 feet tall.

While Greenland has a famous lack of greenery, on an island the size of a subcontinent there can always be surprises.

6. Georgia on my Mind - Albany, Georgia

In downtown Albany, Georgia, overlooking the gentle waters of the Flint River, is a life-size statue of Ray Charles. The musical genius himself was born here, and the statue finds him at a grand piano, leaning back in his distinctive pose.

I chose to include the statue for several reasons. First, it’s an Albany landmark, and Ray Charles is the most famous person from the city. Secondly, I’m a huge Ray Charles fan. And finally, Ray has an especially powerful connection to the Peach State, thanks in part to his classic track Georgia on my Mind. Placing him on the piano down there in Albany conjures up his soulful voice singing… “Georgia…”

7. Rain of fish - Yoro, Honduras

Every year, at the onset of the first rains, it is claimed that fish rain down on the town of Yoro, Honduras. Much about this rain of fish, or lluvia de peces, is unclear. Some suggest that they might wash up during flooding rather than fall from the sky. But whatever the fish rain is, it's viewed locally as a divine miracle.

Every year, Yoro holds the Festival de Lluvia de Peces to honor the event. Legend has it that in the mid 19th-century, a Spanish priest named Father José Manuel Subirana visited Yoro and, distressed by the poverty in the town, he prayed to God for food. He prayed for three nights straight, and on the third night fish began to fall from the sky.

The raining fish can be seen on the map near the white-tailed deer, the national animal of Honduras.

8. Polar bear truck - Churchill, Manitoba

If you want to see polar bears, Churchill is the place for you. It promotes itself as the “Polar Bear Capital of the World” – which is a seriously cool (although slightly terrifying) slogan. While Churchill residents are accustomed to life around polar bears, most tourists experience them from a special truck designed for this exact purpose - a Tundra Buggy.

The vehicle looks like a monster truck school bus built for an ice planet. And as you may have noticed, my proportions are slightly off... A Godzilla-sized polar bear towers above a truck it could destroy with a single paw. Still, proportions aside - there’s no question that polar bears are the biggest thing in Churchill.

Also featured is the Prince of Wales Fort - an old bastion fort originally built by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1717.

Nothing says Churchill, Manitoba quite like a polar bear.

9. Niagara Falls

One of the most famous sites in North America, Niagara Falls needs no introduction. Along with the map proper, it’s on the cartouche to create a natural boundary between the US and Canada. In this case, Chicago and Toronto representing the Midwest and Ontario.

On the map itself, only the crest can be seen as the falls drop away. The Niagara River flows northwards into Lake Ontario, and it wasn’t suited to a front-facing depiction (as is standard for most waterfalls on the map). I like that you get a sense of the steep elevation drop at the falls, where the waters of four Great Lakes crash towards a fifth.

Niagara Falls can also be found on the cartouche, creating a dividing line between Canada and the United States. Here it represents the Great Lakes as much as it does the Falls.

Top - Niagara falls now. Bottom - The falls flowing the wrong way before being fixed.

They’re flowing the right direction now, but... they haven’t always. Readers with a copy of NACIS’s Atlas of Design Vol. III can flick to pages 56-59 and see a much earlier version of the map.

Much of what's shown there has since been redrawn or reworked, and it's fun to compare with a print now. If you cast your eyes to Niagara Falls, you’ll notice they're totally flowing the wrong way. Lake Ontario is flowing into Lake Erie! It's unthinkable now, but in those earliest days (2014) I remember having no confidence drawing a waterfall from the top, so I figured hey – who would notice? Well, turns out that of course, many people would notice! So remember: live, learn, and get your damn waterfalls right.

Looking at the 2014 version it seems I also fixed up the droopy grapes south of Hamilton.

10. Palouse Falls - Eastern Washington state

Following with the waterfall theme, here is a completely different cascade - one that is far less famous.

The Palouse River carves a dramatic canyon through the eastern Washington scablands, and tumbles over this 60m (200-foot) drop on its way to the Snake. It looks like a beautiful place, and as that region of the Pacific Northwest is known as the Palouse, it seemed perfect to place its namesake waterfall prominently.

I have no idea how many waterfalls are on this map. I’ve drawn them in Jamaica, Alabama, the Yukon, and everywhere else. Each one is different, but Palouse Falls is one of my favourite.

That said, plenty of others come to mind… Mexico’s spectacular Basaseachic Falls… Yosemite’s Bridalveil... BC's Helmcken Falls... Maybe I should do a tour entirely on waterfalls.

11. Volcán de Colima - Mexico

The Colima volcano in central-west Mexico. Look to Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest for other eruptions on the map.

Whenever it’s time to draw a volcano, it’s tempting to make it erupt. Eruptions are evocative, fun to draw and filled with drama. But it's easy to overuse them, and with dozens of volcanoes across the map I can’t just draw them all erupting (I'm not trying to depict armageddon). So, which ones to choose?

North America’s volcanoes run mostly in three arcs along the west coast – the Alaska Peninsula, the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest, and then from Mexico through Central America. There are many active volcanoes including some famous for their eruptions such as Mt St. Helens, or Mt Redoubt in Alaska. I tend to choose volcanoes that are either very active/volatile, or had famous eruptions.

The Colima volcano sits on the border between the states of Colima and Jalisco. It is one of the most active in the world, and it erupts at a rate well above the ordinary. I drew it back in 2016 while the volcano itself was calm, but a few months later it began a series of violent eruptions that lasted into the following year.

12. Crown of the Continent - Montana

This magnificent stretch of the Rocky Mountains in northwest Montana is often dubbed the "crown of the continent”. One visit to Glacier National Park and it’s easy to see why. Here at the continental divide, majestic mountains soar and wildlife are abundant - including large populations of grizzlies.

It’s an awe-inspiring landscape that I was lucky to visit in 2017, and shortly afterwards I drew Montana on the map. I figured a crown somewhere might be appropriate, and I chose to place it on Triple Divide Peak.

Triple Divide is an incredible phenomenon. On this one peak, water clearly flows to three different oceans: the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Arctic. This is the only triple oceanic divide in the world, and is thus the hydrological apex of the North American continent.

The crown of the continent was placed just next to triple divide peak, which sends water to Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.

Follow the rivers from the crown of the continent...

Check it out on the map! Starting at the crown, trace your finger north through St Mary Lake to the Saskatchewan system, eventually to Hudson Bay. West through Flathead Lake to the Columbia and the Pacific. East along the Marias all the way down the Missouri/Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

NOTE – it’s arguable whether Hudson Bay is an Arctic water body. It could also be seen as a marginal sea of the Atlantic. But in terms of its frozen conditions, its biome, its location on the continent - it’s pretty damn Arctic. Still, if this description doesn’t satisfy, North America has an alternative triple divide up in Canada called Snow Dome.

I wrote an entire blog in 2017 about the triple divide, my Montana trip and the Snow Dome debate here.

Where would you like to explore next?

Thanks for taking the tour! If you haven't read the first one yet, here it is. Now that prints are starting to ship out and more people begin receiving their maps, I feel these tours will be well suited.

There are literally endless details here, and there's no doubt you'll have questions. I'm always open to answer them, and if you'd like me to focus on a specific feature, or a place, or a theme - leave a comment right here on the blog! I might include it in the next tour.

Until then,

-Anton

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