770 Deaths in the Grand Canyon Mapped

Inspired by the book, Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, Kenneth Field and Damien Saunder created a map that helps tell the stories of more than 770 unfortunate events. They are cartographers with more of a passion about maps than of death statistics so the result is artistic and experience-based rather than analytical.

The map is unique in that it uses chromastereoscopic color which means it can be viewed in holographic 3D if you’re wearing Chromadepth glasses. Red appears closest and blue appears the farthest away. You can view the map just fine without the glasses and you can even download a poster version to print.

Zoom into the online map’s hexagonal symbols and you can see more information about the individual event such as whether it was a drowning, a fall, or even murder. There are a surprisingly large number of air crash victims.

The printed map shows color-coded symbols indicating the reason for demise (pictured at top). It also features snippets of stories such as, “While sitting at a picnic table, gusty winds tore off the top from a nearby tree, which fell on Hock, killing him.”

View the map at www.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingTextLegend/index.html?appid=0d41baefd133497db0a10018af579b5a