Meander: generating historical maps of rivers that never existed

May 30, 2020 3:09 PM

"My all-time favorite map-based data visualization was created in 1944. Harold Fisk, working with the US Army Corp. of Engineers, mapped the length of the Mississippi River. What sets his visualization apart from others is that he maps the river through time, and manages to do so in a way that is both beautiful and surprisingly effective. I want to pay homage to his series of maps by creating my own system for procedurally generating maps of meandering rivers." With that, Robert Hodgin made Meander, a procedural system for generating historical maps of rivers (plus adjacent roadways and developments) that never existed. [via Mltshp]
posted by filthy light thief (18 comments total)

oh and now I'm looking for where I can buy a print of one of those Fisk maps to hang on my wall...
posted by wellifyouinsist at 3:16 PM on May 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

Those Fisk maps are mind boggling. I remember Mark Twain going into the process a fair bit...in Life on the Mississippi I suppose.
posted by bonobothegreat at 3:21 PM on May 30, 2020

This is lovely, filthy light thief -- thank you for posting.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:26 PM on May 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

my grandad was a grad student in Fisk's lab before the war. Photogeology. I gathered from him that one of the primary purposes of the maps is to predict where the USACE river levees are most likely to fail--the old channel is where the sand lenses are, through which groundwater will always flow.
posted by eustatic at 3:40 PM on May 30, 2020 [10 favorites]

That map is insanely gorgeous. I can only imagine the immense amount of effort that created it.
posted by selfnoise at 3:42 PM on May 30, 2020

This is wonderful, filthy light thief. It looks good enough to do simple past/future meander scenarios (certainly useful for helping people understand basics of river function). Really fun and very useful ideas too. I tried saving the .gif of Generating the historical record and it tells me it's 41Mb!
posted by unearthed at 3:47 PM on May 30, 2020

I ran across those maps a few years ago and have always really wanted a print of one! They're astounding.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:56 PM on May 30, 2020

I like these a lot, but his rivers seem unrealistically unconstrained -- usually you have a highway or a levee cutting off half of the floodplain, with a bunch of houses in the most vulnerable locations imaginable within the historic meanders.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:10 PM on May 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Iirc the Army Corps of Engineers did a huge amount of work to stabilize it, and it remains to be seen if that will cause more problems than it solved.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:26 PM on May 30, 2020

Have loved the Fisk maps and been influenced by them as an artist for years - fascinating and beautiful. John McPhee wrote a book titled the Control of Nature with a long chapter "Atchafalaya" about the Army Corps' efforts on the Mississippi and why they will ultimately fail.
posted by leslies at 4:32 PM on May 30, 2020 [6 favorites]

now I'm looking for where I can buy a print of one of those Fisk maps to hang on my wall...

Per the Radical Cartography link in the FPP, the hi-res plate PDFs are available at the Corps of Engineers' project site, so you could just make your own prints. In the left sidebar, go to "Fisk 44 Oversized Plates" under Documents. It's 700mb, so be ready for a big download. You should be able to send it to any place that does mail-order photo prints, depending on what size you want for the end product. I can't say for absolute certainty, but my bet is they're all public domain.
posted by msbrauer at 5:33 PM on May 30, 2020 [7 favorites]

Find a local print shop that does drum prints and get a giant one that way. You'll pay a fairly decent penny for a truly large print, but you'll get the best quality if you want something larger if you go that route.
posted by hippybear at 6:01 PM on May 30, 2020

Any mention of Fisk's maps immediately takes me back to John McPhee, too. "Atchafalaya" is one of my favorite essays of all time. It was originally published in the New Yorker and you can read it online.
posted by ourobouros at 8:34 PM on May 30, 2020 [7 favorites]

I first saw one of those Fisk maps in Clarkesville, Mississippi, at the Delta Blues Museum (just prior to Levon Helm performing with his band in the parking lot; this would have been not long before his cancer diagnosis), and I was immediately fascinated.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:05 PM on May 30, 2020

This is incredible. My dad loves maps. I wonder if he'd like a print of one of these. It would be neat to get one of something in California. Thank you for sharing.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 11:13 PM on May 30, 2020

They are really nice. It took a few for me to realize that they were presented upside-down orientation to my mind's eye.

The whole series as prints would be great in a home with the origins starting at the entry and delta finishing in either the kitchen or bathroom (depending on one's sensibilities. )
posted by mightshould at 3:37 AM on May 31, 2020

Thanks for posting this, it is wonderful!
posted by mumimor at 3:41 AM on May 31, 2020

'Atchafalaya' is a fair bit outmoded in this neoliberal day. There's this tendency of the new York publications to talk right past the oil industry's role, or the dredging cartel's role in constraining the Corps, who is keeping the river in one place for these concerns, because New York still runs on heating oil.

It also ends up implying that people in Louisiana are ignorant of these political and geological dynamics, when we live them everyday. Sure, in one hundred years, we'll be dead, so we must be dead right now, right? We couldn't imagine causing the oil industry in the USA any inconvenience, could we?

For Geology, I would point toward Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's Mardi Gras Pass, as the river already has created a new distributary channel down in Plaquemines, and it s building a new delta there. There are islands forming in the birdfoot, as the river switches east.

On the west side, the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper has released a master plan for preserving the swamps of the Basin. It will continue to be a wonder, a unique swamp on the planet earth for your lifetime, and your child s lifetime. We ve petitioned for it to become a Ramsey area. Pay it a visit!
posted by eustatic at 6:05 PM on May 31, 2020 [6 favorites]