Monthly Archives: December 2024

Looks like reindeer

As the Christmas season approached, we wondered how many maps we could find that feature reindeer. Printed maps from the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries often have decorative cartouches around the title and scale, which may reference the area portrayed on the map with local produce, wildlife, costumes or activities.  This scale bar from map of Nova Zemla (Novaya Zemlya) by the celebrated Dutch mapmaker Joan Blaeu, is a nice example. It shows men in warm clothing bearing mapmaking equipment (a measuring chain, compasses, staff), observed by two reindeer. One of the map makers, surprisingly, has wings. This first appeared in Blaeu’s impressive multi volume Atlas Maior from the 1660s; this is taken from a French edition, Le grand atlas of 1667.

Reindeer make another appearance in the next map in the atlas, Fretum Nassovium, vulgo de Straet Nassou (showing the Kara Strait, between Novaya Zemlya and the Russian mainland); a cheerful looking reindeer decorates the scale bar, along with a fox and some slightly unconvincing bears.

A beautiful map of the Dvina River in the next volume also shows a group of reindeer looking out over the landscape.

An English example appears in this map of New England, engraved by Francis Lamb for a late edition of John Speed’s Prospect of the most famous parts of the world, published in the 1670s. It is one of many maps of New England in the atlas derived from Jan Jansson’s Belgii Novi. Here the deer appears on the map itself, which is also illustrated with other animals including bears, foxes and storks, all helping to fill up inland areas for which geographical knowledge was limited.

More modern maps also feature reindeer; this mid-twentieth century pictorial map of the world is a charming example:

A recent Michelin tourist map of Finland has a cover illustration showing people enjoying a sleigh ride. No doubt the reindeer are at a loose end for much of the year when Santa doesn’t need them, so are happy to give rides to tourists.:

Two final, perhaps more frivolous examples are particularly aimed at younger viewers. A seasonal map of Birmingham city centre invites visitors to follow a reindeer trail:

While Collins world atlas sticker book features a friendly reindeer for younger readers. It was one of the maps submitted by the UK to the annual International Cartographic Association exhibition as an example of UK cartography; educational maps are important!

Merry Christmas from the Map Room.

Nova Zemla, Fretum Nassovium, abd Dwina fluvius; all from Le grand atlas, ou, Cosmographie blaviane, en la quelle est exactement descritte la terre, la mer, et le ciel. Amsterdam : Chez Jean Blaeu, MDCLXVII [1667] Map Res. 45-51.

‘A map of New England and New York,’ from The theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine … as also A prospect of the most famous parts of the world. London: Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell, 1676. Map Res. 112

Extract from Philips pictorial globe. London: George Philip, [1959].  B1 (440)

Michelin Finland: motoring and tourist map [cover]. Paris: Michelin Éditions, 2024. C35 (334)

Brum’s Christmas reindeer trail. [Birmingham] :Central Bid Birmingham, [2024].  C17:70 Birmingham (110)

Extract from Collins world atlas sticker book. London: Collins, 2013. ICA 2013 UK 029

Mountain man

Of the three main ways that material comes into the library; legal deposit, purchase and donation, donations are usually the best. More often than not these are older maps, sometimes with annotations or with a good story attached (here). So it was exciting to get a box recently from an Oxford resident, of maps that belonged to her grandfather. The maps are a mixture of locations and dates, but most are of hilly and mountainous places.

Born in Florence in 1889 to a British family John Alfred Spranger (J.A.S from now on) was a man of many talents. A skilled photographer (examples of his work can be found here Fragmented Archives: an Example of the Photographs of J.A. Spranger in the SPHS Collection – British School at Athens ), an engineer and a cartographer. He also published works on Greek manuscripts and took part in the publishing of a version of the Greek New Testament. And he liked to climb mountains.

Inevitably the maps concentrate on his life in the mountains, and are mostly of areas close to Italy. Maps of mountainous regions, with the need to show relief and dramatic landscapes, are often beautifully engraved and as a result usually look wonderful (see the map at the end of the blog). Here’s a 1896 map of the Mont Blanc Massif, part of the Alps that J.A.S.started climbing in the years leading up to World War One.

La Chaine du Mont-Blanc, 1896, C21:44 (54)

J.A.S. took part in an Italian expedition led by Filippo de Filippi to the Himalayas, Karakoram and Eastern Turkestan between 1913 and 1914, finishing the expedition late into that most ominous of years.  A book by de Filippi, published in 1932 and including a chapter and photographs by J.A.S., who did the majority of the surveying work on the expedition, concludes with this poignant last paragraph ‘So we had to part from our English colleagues, Wood and Spranger, who left for Salonika to embark for Brindisi. We Italians went to Budapest and on December 18th we crossed the borders of our country after more than sixteen months of absence’.

The collection is mainly made up of European mapping, with a number for the Mont-Blanc and Swiss Alps regions. There are also two beautiful photographic panoramas, one of which is of the Gornergrat region, in the Pennie Alps of Switzerland. The panorama is too long to show well, but here’s an extract that includes the Matterhorn

Zermatt, panorama vom Gornergrat, c1930, C39:7 d.1

In 1924 J.A.S. travelled to Canada, and started climbing in the Cariboo Mountain range in British Columbia. He seems to have been the first to climb a peak called Flat Mountain as, soon after, this peak was renamed Mount Spranger by the Canadian Survey Department. During his time in British Columbia J.A.S. bought some maps of the Cariboo area which are in the donation and, more importantly, used his cartographic skills to make a couple of manuscript maps of the area. Here’s the official 1973 1:50,000 map showing Mount Spranger

and here’s the manuscript map by J.A.S. of the same area, with Flat Mtn. at top left.

Canada 1:50,000 sheet 94 A/15, 1973, F4 (21) and Sketch map of Mitchell Lake, c1924, MS F4:11 (241)

Finally an extract from the ‘Theodulpass’ sheet of the Topographischer Atlas der Schweiz’ 1;50,000 sheet (1944, C39:28 (21)) showing the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe and also one of the deadliest of all climbs in terms of deaths in attempt of any in the World.        Proof, if still needed, of the beauty to be found in maps of mountains.