Why learn to navigate?
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Navigation: To make one's way to a destination by planning and following a course. In our many years practicing and teaching land navigation, we have seen that one learns much more than the practical skill of finding one's way using a map. Navigation practice develops spatial skills and a sense of direction, particularly in the young. It also gives one proficiency and confidence in everyday navigation tasks such as walking around campus, around town, or through Costco, driving a car, or riding a bike. |
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Less obviously, navigating on foot using a map gives practice in handling uncertainty and making decisions. Uncertainty arises because the map is never a perfect depiction of the terrain, and because one often does not perfectly keep track of ones position on the map. Many decisions need to be made during navigation, both when initially planning a route, and along the way: Is this the point at which I had planned to turn? Now that I have seen what the terrain really looks like, should I change my plan? When done competitively in the sport of orienteering, land navigation on foot develops mental toughness: the ability to keep thinking in the face of fatigue and uncertainty. Orienteering presents nearly constant mental demands. First, the competitor must frequently choose where to best focus his or her attention: looking at the nearby terrain, looking at the terrain ahead, comparing the terrain to the map, confirming ones current location on the map, route planning, and route re-evaluation are all contenders. Attention must also be given to ones footing, and to adjusting ones speed to the terrain. |
Further, focusing attention on each of these is mentally demanding, and must be done in the presence of uncertainty. Thus, orienteering provides several layers of mental challenges, mimicking the challenges found in everyday life more closely than many sports.
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Finally, land navigation on foot deepens ones knowledge of terrain by requiring one to pay close attention to the shape of the land and to the vegetation and other features found upon it. It also gives a physical experience of the vegetation and the shape of the land. It is a much more intimate experience of terrain than that found while walking or running on a trail. One gradually learns that vegetation is often thickest at the boundary between forest and meadow, that footing is easier on higher ground than in gullies, that animal trails are a comfortable way to contour around a hillside, that beaver dams can provide convenient stream crossings. |
 Photo: Brad R. Wetmore |
To summarize, training and practice in land navigation on foot provide the following benefits:
- spatial skills, sense of direction, and everyday navigation proficiency.
- decision making skills, the ability to handle uncertainty, and, when done competitively, mental toughness.
- deepened knowledge of terrain.