Be Expert with Map and Compass: The Complete Orienteering Handbook [ペーパーバック]

This was the first book I ever bought on the subject of using a map and compass. It was recommended by everyone I knew, as there wasn't a whole lot else out there at the time, and it had been in print since 1955. Today, about the best I can say for Kjellstrom's book is that it is better for beginners than the rambling "Sierra Club Land Navigation Handbook" (revised edition or not), but that's about it. The illustrations in "Be Expert With Map and Compass" are few and small, and the book has an ancient feel to it, with outdated references and quirky language (it's been in print for nearly 50 years, and the author died over 10 years ago when in his nineties). A smaller criticism is the tiny format and paperback-size pages - difficult to lay flat and read while attempting to orient the map or set the compass (you'll have to practice this stuff in the field, remember).

The age of Kjellstrom's book is revealed in the obsolete recommendations on adjusting the compass for declination, where the hoary old methods of memorizing rhymes or worse, of drawing magnetic declination lines all over your map with a pencil (usually inaccurately) and obscuring important detail is advocated. The latter method, still practiced by orienteering or adventure racing competitors (who get nicely pre-marked magnetic-oriented maps or draw their lines at home on a draftsman's board with a protractor), it's not easily accomplished without error using only a ruler. And if you have to improvise in the field, imagine doing it in the wind on some rock with only a compass baseplate for a straightedge! Modern books recognize better methods: either buy a compass with adjustable declination, or else tape a separate pointer for local east or west true declination for your area onto your compass baseplate. Simple, easy, and virtually error-proof.

A more serious problem is that fully half the book doesn't even deal with real-life wilderness navigation, but is instead devoted to the unrelated sport of orienteering and the setting up of orienteering races (a fine sport, but with little relevance to practical backcountry navigation with its use of special large-scale maps and simplified compasses used only to orient the map to north). Learning how to set up control points and course lines for orienteering races ISN'T going to teach you how to navigate in remote backcountry! Worse, this emphasis on orienteering means that the book completely omits important material: advanced map/compass navigational techniques, sun/star navigational methods, position-finding, latitude/longitude and UTM grid systems, navigating in certain specialized environments and climates, etc, etc. - information a wilderness navigator ought to know.

To conclude, the book is simply outdated, inadequate, and slow-reading in comparison to modern map/compass guides (my first recommendation: 'The Essential Wilderness Navigator') that will teach you much more, and more quickly.

Completely foreign to this subject I was searching for a book to use to teach our homeschool group about orienteering and map reading. The book has an excellent method of learning about mapping and using the compass with hands on projects for a group. The kids had a grand time with the classes and the parents learned a lot, too. Loved all the references that were included to order maps and supplies.

Be Expert with Map and Compass provides a good introduction to land navigation and the sport of orienteering. The first two sections discuss how to navigate with a map alone and a compass alone. Separate discussions of these two components give the reader a strong understanding of how they work and how they can be useful. The third section then deals with the combined use of map and compass. These sections gently move up in difficulty and make navigating with a map and compass easy to learn. The last section is an introduction to the sport of orienteering and provides information on how to get involved, the rules of the game, and how to set up a competition. Even if you are not interested in competitive orienteering, the book is a good way to learn how to get about with a map and compass.