Coffee Table Book of: Orienteering (Hardcover)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Orienteering is a large format book of orienteering, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the orange and white control flag in the forest, the compass, the punch at a control, the woods, bogs, moors and lakeshores where the sport is run, standing empty at every hour and in every season, the kit being made and cared for, the old ways of the sport, and a few orienteers seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain: a baseplate compass on deep moss and another on a granite slab by a lake, a thumb compass with its elastic loop, a small orange punching unit on its stake above a flag, the electronic stick on its finger loop, a studded shoe turned to show its sole, gaiters on pine needles, a whistle on its cord, a headlamp glowing on moss at dusk and a light kit laid out on pale floorboards.

The making and the preparation follow flag cloth stitched at the machine and cut into triangles, a heap of folded flags, a bundle of stakes beside a mallet, a strip of ribbon tied to a branch for training, a drawing board on a mossy stump for the mapper, wet flags hung to dry and the taped lanes of an empty start. The past runs from an old canvas map case on a log wall and a needle floating on cork to an old brass pocket compass, a steel pin punch hanging from its stake and a stack of pierced cards.

Short notes run through the book, on the map, the compass and the control flag and how they guide the way, the kit and how it is made, and the history of the sport: open bog is shown in blue on the map, and its soft wet ground can be slow to cross, a lake or a road beyond a control is a catching feature, warning a runner who has gone too far, a headlamp lights the ground ahead and leaves both hands free for map and compass, and the flag must be in plain view once a runner reaches the feature, never hidden behind it.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.