Restoring the Kämper Map for the 21st Century: A Digital Approach

One would be hard-pressed to find any 20th Century spelunker familiar with Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave system who did not also have some passing familiarity with the Kämper Map. The work of German engineer Max Kämper, who explored extensive areas of Mammoth Cave in the company of guide Ed Bishop in 1907-1908, the meticulous hand-drawn cave map would for decades prove the most reliable tool for navigating the miles of darkness – its tangled lines of ink the equivalent of Theseus’ ball of twine in this natural labyrinth. This effort had its inception in conversations between the author, who as the Visual Information Specialist for Mammoth Cave National Park frequently received requests for representations of the Kämper Map, and the Park’s Curator, who found that frequent demand for access to the original was becoming detrimental to the object. At the same time, the Park Ecologist had immediate need of a digital version of the Map for several scholarly purposes, so the author undertook, initially, to simply acquire a detailed scan of the original to provide ready access for research and publications and decrease exposure of the original. The author’s initial inspection of the Map, however, revealed conditions that propelled an expansion of methods to achieve the same set of goals. This paper is an exposition of the methodology employed in this restoration; findings and document analysis will be reviewed in a subsequent paper