Oh, The Places You’ll (Not) Go…
August 20, 2020
First Major Map Revision in SHTA History
The new Trail Atlas of the Superior Hiking Trail, a major map revision, has been a dream project for years. Thanks to a fresh GPS line curated by Andrew Gustin and Maddie Bolen in fall of 2018 (since updated with new reroutes), our dream had fresh life breathed into it. Adding our rockstar GIS intern Melody Morris into the mix made for a perfect opportunity to tackle this dream.
What you’ll see with our map revision is a commitment to detail and accuracy and an effort to be consistent with the North Country Trail Association’s data offerings, including digital maps available on the mobile Avenza Maps app. We hope you’ll find both the digital and print maps useful.
The Delight of Data Driven Discoveries
During this map revision process, we learned a lot about map-making — and about our beloved Trail. We unearthed some mysteries along the way too…
- Cook County’s Crow Creek Campsite and Crow Creek bridge (freshly installed just a couple of winters ago) are, apparently, on Stone Creek. While you’ll see the creek with its correct name on the map, we’ve kept Crow Creek as the campsite’s name for posterity.
- A similar situation is true of Fault Line Creek Campsite, which is located on Black Sand Creek (and don’t get too excited — there is no visible black sand unless you count mud).
- The Trail no longer visits Alfred’s Pond because Alfred’s Pond is officially named Ruffy Lake. Who was Alfred and how did he claim the pond’s name? That information may be lost to time. (If you know, please let us know!)
- As for our beloved Lake Agnes — turns out, we got the words right but in the wrong order. Officially, it’s called Agnes Lake!
In addition to the misnomers we uncovered, we’ve also cleaned up some campsite name issues. For example, North Beaver River Campsite and South Beaver River Campsite are almost precisely east-west from one another, not north-south. Northbound hikers encountered North Beaver River first and only after hiking northbound some more did they come across South Beaver River. No one can blame hikers for finding this confusing. We hope the updated names — East Beaver River Campsite and West Beaver River Campsite — will not only reflect reality better, but will minimize hikers’ head-scratching.
It may take some time to get used to new maps and new names, but we hope the fresh maps and updated data will help our trail users better understand the what’s really out there to be discovered on the next adventure.