Kip Powick Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 The Ottawa Citizen Tuesday, October 21, 2003 Officials at the Ottawa Airport have flown into damage control after a visitor noticed that large display maps in the new terminal have redrawn the United States, putting Atlanta in Alabama and Washington, D.C., next to North Carolina. The artist-rendered map of North America -- located in the terminal's baggage area and second-floor level -- paints a cloudy picture of some of the destinations to which airlines fly from Ottawa. On close inspection of the map, Atlanta is settled somewhere in the middle of Alabama, Chicago appears to have migrated to the state of Wisconsin and the U.S. capitol has had its climate improved, moving farther south. There are eight misaligned destination maps, including one mounted on a wall near the departures gate that measures 2.4 metres by 4.8 metres. Since the new terminal opened 10 days ago, thousands of travellers have walked past the maps, but so far only Windsor doctor Albert Schumacher has complained about the mistakes. The errors may appear trivial, but it really points to a bigger issue about Canadian ignorance of American geography, said Dr. Schumacher, who is visiting Ottawa. "As Canadians, we've expressed concern about our American visitors when they come here not knowing anything about our geography. We're (now) guilty of the same thing. "It's even worse when you see it happening in Ottawa when the folks here are entrusted with relationships with people outside the country." Airport officials yesterday were taken aback when they were alerted to the mistakes on the North American map. "It's meant to be an artistic representation to show graphically that we cover a number of destinations," said Krista Kealey, the airport's director of media relations. "We apologize if anybody is offended that it's not exactly as per a map of the world. It's totally an illustration." She said the maps were illustrated by an Ottawa company -- which she declined to name -- and serve as information posters for the traveling public, as well as advertising boards. She said no other complaints were lodged about the maps, and that a change will be made only when a new destination is added to the airport schedule. It would cost about $5,000 to correct the maps, said John Spinks, vice-president of business development and marketing for the airport. He said the original rendering of the map excluded provincial and state lines, and, in an effort to make the map clearer, those lines were added. Dr. Schumacher said he expects to be embarrassed next week when his colleagues from Chicago fly to Ottawa's new airport and spot the map. "They are going to be seeing a map that doesn't even show Chicago in the correct state." Late yesterday, Ms. Kealey said airport officials are considering several options, one of which is possibly fixing the maps before a new destination is formally added to the airport schedule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Starman Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 Perhaps there's a link between this and Ottawa's stand on the legalization of marijuana. "Like, don't get all gnarly Dude! There's no reason to get all stoked on geography... it's just like totally an illustration..." P.S. "...you goin' to eat those chips, man?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest M. McRae Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 In today's news there is a report that the GG spent over 35million last year and the RCMP, Cdn Forces etc. spent another 15 million on her. Seems to me that the office needs to be cut back a notch or perhaps has outlived it's usefulness. (N) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Starman Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 I also noticed a response from Jean Cretien regarding the purchase of executive jets in which he said that the money was "extra money..." (just floating around Ottawa, clogging up the streets, I suppose) I guess it's better to shovel taxpayers money at whatever pork barrel you want than to rebate it in the form of tax breaks for the long suffering electorate in this country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aBusDriver Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 "As Canadians, we've expressed concern about our American visitors when they come here not knowing anything about our geography. We're (now) guilty of the same thing." Ironically....the Feds probally awarded the contract for the map to an American firm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted October 22, 2003 Author Share Posted October 22, 2003 She said the maps were illustrated by an Ottawa company -- which she declined to name -- and serve as information posters for the traveling public, as well as advertising boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Panama Jack Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Funny thing is . . . it wouldn't surprise me if it was an American who drew the map. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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