Don't Blame the Mapmaker!
 Even
after the Great Lakes became familiar to sailors and mapmakers alike,
certain inaccuracies persisted in published images of the region.
Maps in
this exhibit evidence—
- Islands
you've never seen before in Lake Superior
- An
odd slope to the Lake Michigan coast of Michigan's mitten
- Elevations
more dramatic than you remember
A map
is only as good as the information available to its maker, the
cartographer. If that
information is exaggerated, imprecise or just plain wrong, any map based
upon it will be flawed as well.
The map
above, Carte des Lac du Canada (1744), is the first separate
engraved map of the lake region of Western Canada. Jacques Nicolas Bellin, the
mapmaker, placed a fictitious island—Isle Philippeaux—in Lake Superior.
(He
may have been confused by two different names having been given to Isle
Royale at this time.) However, Bellin was an engineer in the Service
Hydrographique de la Marine of France and a highly respected mapmaker. Other mapmakers copied his
work; for about a century afterwards some even added other
fictitious islands to the lake.
What's
Cool About Maps? features 29 maps from the collection of the Jesse
Besser Museum, Alpena, Michigan. The exhibit was at the Michigan Historical Museum, Lansing, Michigan, during the fall of 2001.
This
online minitour of the exhibit features one map from each of seven themes.
Visit each of the themes by clicking on the titles in the left
column. The map images were photographed under existing light
conditions in the gallery. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.
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