Hike Korea :: The Taedong-yojido expedition

This is one of the last 12 remaining wood tablets left. It is of the Gap-san mountain area in Hamgyeong, North Korea. This tablet depicts deeply how the people of the Joseon period thought about their own landscape. "The mountain ranges and river courses which make up the country are not separate from each other. They were represented as a skeletal frame and blood vessels constituting a living entity. This is the reflection of the concept of the land of the Joseon people who consider their land as a living body".

National Museum of Korea.

Above is an image of what the Fire Towers look like on the Daedong-yojido. There were numerous marked all over the peninsula, effectively causing a signal system that could reach all the way back to Seoul, the Joseon capital.

Above is an image of the old fire beacon routes from the early 15th century.

What some of the remaining Fire Towers still look like. Photo©Choi Jin-yeon.

The Daedong-yojido 대동여지도 Expedition.

This is a digital replica of the 1861 map of the Daedong-yojido or the Great Eastern Nation. It was produced as 22 volumes containing sequential fold-out maps of the Korean peninsula. Each plate was hand carved from 60 double sided tablets of the hardwood Linden Tree (Tilla amurensis). Only 12 tablets remain, and only 26 complete volumes remain as well. It is the last map of Korea ever produced from wooden tablets, previous efforts were simply hand painted on silk. This depiction is what the Daedong-yojido would look like if printed on one sheet. It would stand at 6.6 meters in height and 3.8 meters abroad. One day I want to fully investigate this map using information gleaned and translated from it. I would like to create an imaginary course using the old locations of the Fire Towers as marked on this map, and promote those somehow as the foundation for a future national netowrk of trails that would interconnect most of national and natural treasues to walkers from all over the world.

Although some of the information on this map is now untranslatable due to changes in name places, the topography lines that Kim Jeong-ho etched are identifiable. Korea has a unique topography that is traceable down from its main ridge system the Baekdu-daegan, to a series of Jeong-maek (subsidiary ridges) and then downwards again to other smaller ridges called Ji-maek. Most of the ridge-work that kim Jeong-ho marked on his map is traceable back to modern day maps, because in the end, although man-made features may come and go, mountains don't change so rapidly.

This is probably the biggest project that I have shelved for the future and involves the cooperation of the Government of Korea. If it ever does happen, it'll be as a result of National Assembly decision, to remodel Korean idnetity. To build a national trail netowrk based on old and existing trails, may take as long as five years, and would also require generations of maintenance and marketing, but I believe it can happen. Using the Taedong-yojido as a model and brand would be exciting. More information can be found at Hike Korea's facebook page.