The Mapmaker's Exception

The map was praised for its decisiveness. Marsh became meadow at a clean green boundary; the river kept to a blue line; paths neither hesitated nor contradicted one another. Visitors found it a considerable improvement on the villagers' habit of giving directions that began, "It depends."

Its maker, Selene, had spent a winter surveying the valley. She knew perfectly well that the marsh advanced after rain and that the river occasionally declined to observe its own banks. A map, however, had to commit itself. She could not print weather.

The dispute arose over a footpath to the ferry. In dry months it followed a low causeway; after prolonged rain, residents used a ridge farther east. Selene printed the ridge as the main route and the causeway as an alternative. The ferryman objected that this made the longer journey appear normal.

"For a stranger," she replied, "the safer route should be normal."

He asked which stranger: the one arriving in August with a suitcase, or the one bringing a bicycle in February? Selene heard pedantry in the question and was irritated to recognise the same quality in her answer.

The revised map included both routes and a note about conditions. Tourists complained that it no longer told them which way to go. The ferryman complained that a note could not teach anyone to recognise saturated ground.

Years later, Selene found a copy pinned in the ferry shelter. Someone had added a movable arrow labelled "Today". Beneath it, in a different hand, was written, "Ask if unsure."

She was tempted to photograph this as proof that her map had become a living document. Then she noticed the grandiosity of claiming credit for the means by which people had corrected its inadequacy. She asked the ferryman which path he would take. For once, she waited through the whole answer.