Horner + Maclennan

Scottish Mountaineering Press, 2023 Creative Flash Fiction Contest - Contours

Congratulations to Keith who was runner up in a competition run by the Scottish Mountaineering Press, 2023 Creative Flash Fiction Contest - Contours, kindly supported by Fort William Mountain Festival and the Highland Bookshop. 

Contours – A Cartographic Fiction

by Keith Horner

The proposition that Charles Hutton inadvertently invented the contour on Schiehallion in 1774 whilst calculating the weight of the earth is a mischievous deception orchestrated by the scientific establishment of the Enlightenment era.

The contour actually originates from the life-long activity of Highland shepherdess Miss Con(stance) Tour who, like the proverbial haggis, had one leg longer than the other. Over decades, as she tended her flock, she established continuous horizontal trails across the hillsides that became highly visible.

Early cartographers quickly recognised the value of her lines of horizontal delineation in depicting the three-dimensional quality of the landscape on maps. However, whilst maps contain symbols that represent actual physical features, you will find no visible evidence of lines of constant height extending across the landscape. After Con’s untimely death at the age of 103 following a severe bout of dizziness, her trails became overgrown and contours assumed a cartographic fiction.

Contours

image submitted by another runner up,  Hilary Tresidder