Michigan: cartographic perspectives on the "Great Lakes State"

Michigan Historical Review, Spring, 2005 by Gerald A. Danzer

In the seventeenth century a third approach to characterizing the interior of North America gradually supplanted the riverine-axis and blank-map approaches. In this case, great lakes dominated America's heartland. There were a few precedents in the previous century, starting with Paolo Forlani's map of the New World (Venice, 1565) and leading up to Edward Wright's map illustrating the Principal Navigations ... of the English Nation (London, 1599). (11) But the gradual appearance of what are now known as the Great Lakes on printed maps actually reflected the exploration of the American interior by the French. The process of discovering these inland waters, of reporting the new knowledge back to Europe, and finally of translating these relations onto published maps has intrigued scholars and map collectors ever since the work of Francis Parkman. (12) The sequence of maps that gradually defined the Great Lakes was considered "fundamental" to understanding the mapping of Michigan by Louis C. Karpinski, and he devoted more pages to this background story than to the actual bibliography in his classic work. (13)

The dynamic between French exploration and North American cartography starts with Samuel de Champlain, the father of New France. He drew at least four comprehensive maps of New France, two of which illustrated his publications outlining the French explorations in the New World. (14) Champlain's 1612 map was part of an elaborate sheet that included botanical drawings and portrayals of Native Peoples. Decorations and other features on the map suggested bountiful seas and lands of abundance supporting a colony covered with trees arranged in park-like fashion. Champlain took care to note that he had not visited much of the area portrayed on his map. Based largely on reports from the Indians, the map shows a broad St. Lawrence River leading to a pair of great lakes, the second of which is cut off by the map's border. Champlain set images of canoes and a great sturgeon on these waters, continuing the motifs of fecundity and accessibility evident throughout the map. This classic map, "the genesis of Great Lakes cartography," (15) celebrated bountiful waters and verdant lands in the American interior as much as it suggested a passageway through them.

Champlain's second printed map appeared in Paris in 1632. By then the great-lakes theme had been picked up by other cartographers. The rise of the great Dutch map-publishing firms occurred during these decades. A map of North America prepared by Johannes Jansson eventually reached nineteen editions, appearing in atlases published by Hendrick Hondius and eventually by Jansson himself. The original Jansson map (1636) followed the Briggs map of 1625. In the Northeast, however, Jansson used Champlain's 1612 map, drawing several lakes as the source of the St. Lawrence River. In addition, this map suggested two additional gateways to the American interior, from Button (Hudson) Bay to the north and by way of a miniature Mississippi River system draining into the Gulf of Mexico. (16)