Paksworld

Drawing fantasy maps always brings up the question of how far is it really from here to there…from, say, Halveric Steading to Chaya, or Fiveway to  Valdaire?  Eager readers may try to figure out the scale of a fantasy map and thus determine what the real travel distances and times “should” be.

For some of you, what I’m going to talk about is familiar–you yourselves have done long hikes, ridden long distances, and so you know what goes into “a day’s travel.”  But for those who haven’t, here’s why the map is only a rough guide.

Forty years ago, when I was young and fit, I would drive out of the city on an afternoon when I got off work, or leave early the next morning, and drive a couple of hours to the mountains.   The Appalachian Trail was that close, and I explored the parts I could reach, and connecting side trails, weekend by weekend, with the aid of topo maps.   Later, I hiked around  in other areas as well.   Weather didn’t matter much–rain, dry, hot, cold–if the park road was closed (for snow, for instance) I’d hike up from a road that was open.     It was great experience for someone who would later write books in which people are walking around on natural land in real weather.   I had come from almost-flat land, where slope had little or no effect on how far you could go (heat did!) and the surface was either dirt or pavement–yes, it was harder to walk across a plowed and harrowed field than on pavement, but not that much harder.  Now, in the foothills and mountains,  I learned about terrain.

History backed up what my legs and back told me.  Five miles on flat firm ground is not the same as five miles of deep, loose sand, or five miles of uphill at varying slope angles, or five miles of mucky bottomland forest.    In dry weather, on a ridgetop trail, I could cover a lot more ground in the same time as I could in wet weather, or climbing up from the bottom.  One morning when I woke up to thick fog,  it took me almost an  hour to cover a half mile…I wasn’t familiar with the side trail I’d taken to my camp, and there were side trails off the side trail.    The day before, walking in, it was a 10-15 minute trip.   (Yes, I hiked and camped alone a lot.  I had Colin Fletcher’s book.)

Topo maps, if you use them a lot, become a reasonable guide to how long this five miles will take compared to that five miles–if weather doesn’t intervene and the map is accurate and in a scale that shows every wrinkle.  However, even topo maps can fool you: we were used to 20-foot contours on our eastern maps, and when we ordered maps for a long trip in Utah, it had 50 foot contours.  We told ourselves that the same contour line spacing meant a steeper slope, but it was the sight of a “little knob” we’d planned to climb for a view–said little knob being 2 1/2 times as tall and near vertical-sided–that taught us what we’d gotten into.  (Wonderful trip–just bigger country.  But offering an educational range of footing…)

So consider travelers on foot or a live mount–horse, donkey, mule, camel, whatever–in natural country with hand-built roads (if any.)   The factors that govern how fast they go include terrain (the exact shape of the land), surface conditions (what they walk on–hard, firm, soft, sand, dirt, rock, mud,  unstable–such as a talus slope), weather (temperature, wind and its direction, precipitation in kind and amount), vegetation (interacts with surface and weather to produce easier or harder travel), their personal characteristics (age, health, size, weight, degree of fitness–and that of their mount, if they have one), their load (what they’re carrying in addition to themselves), their supplies (because that affects condition.)

Travel with animals, often used in movies and books to speed up the pace, isn’t that simple either.   Animals need to be fed, watered, and cared for; horses and mules eat and drink more than people, and on a different schedule.  Horses overheat more easily; both have hoof issues (cuts, punctures, bruises, loose and lost shoes)  and skin issues (saddle and pack galls) that must be prevented or cared for.   They’re affected by footing, slope, weather, etc….and by the skill of their riders or packers.  Humans can use trails horses and mules can’t–those small hooves in relation to their weight means more weight/unit area, and thus the animals bog down in mud that humans can slog through.

The accidents of travel–the sprained ankle on the human, the lameness of a mount, the pack that rolls downhill and spills half the journey’s food over the slope–also come into play.   Pre-mechanized travelers could not retreat to their vehicle and drive to the nearest store to replenish supplies…if they were three or four walking days (or weeks) from a supply base, they made it on what they had–or else.    (You learn caution, hiking alone: yeah, sure, you could *probably* slide down that steep slope, but what will you do if there’s a rock under those leaves that flips you around so you land wrong on the rocks by the stream?   Bad place to break an ankle or bang your head.  Maybe better take the long way around…)

There are historical records of the average travel times for known, here-on-earth locations.   Military history gives the average distance covered in specific areas within a day, and the marching time between certain cities in specific conditions.   These make it clear that all the above factors affect speed and thus travel time and thus the *effective* distance, whatever the measured distance may be.    Maps drawn before the development of “scientific” cartography reflect more about the realities of travel than the actual distance.  Features are enlarged when important to the traveler, and minimized when not

Researching for the first Paks books, I used many sources for travel distances and speeds, from military memoirs (Sherman was particularly useful) to the Sierra Club handbook on hiking and the use of pack animals.  But most useful were the hours spent on the trail with a pack on my back or in the saddle,  in all seasons and all weathers, in various places from Virginia to western Canada.    The books gave me numbers and instruction; a few gave me more vivid images.  The real thing gave me personal all-sensory experience.   I needed (and used) both.

The maps, C.J. Cherryh said, should come last.   They’re a handy reference.  But the story rules.