Make me a map

Coeur d’Alene native Mary Skerrett spent 12 years in Los Angeles with thoughts of her hometown circling the back of her mind. Two years ago, she wanted to buy a map of Lake Coeur d’Alene to take back and show her L.A. friends. She couldn’t find one.

“What were available were the boating maps with all the lake depths and details,” she said. While those were great for utilitarian purposes, Skerrett, 36, wanted a simple, clean look that would connect people to a place.

So she decided to make her own. Actually, she decided to find someone artistic to create it. She called longtime friend Chris Pfeiffer, who was living in Portland at the time.

Pfeiffer, a stranger to cartography but a 10-year graphic designer, began researching.

“I basically started looking at everything from Google maps to USGS maps that they have for all sorts of geographical purposes,” Pfeiffer, 38, said. “I pulled everything I could from all of that and said, ‘Here’s the shell of the lake. Let’s draw the shoreline using all of these points of reference.’ Once we had the shoreline drawn, then it gets fun. That’s the hard part. Once that’s done then you decide what the spirit of it is.”

The duo had to decide whether to capture Lake Coeur d’Alene as it was in the golden era of resort towns or how it is today. While they wanted to keep the map historically accurate for old-timers, they also had to consider bays that were renamed or are well known by a nickname. So far, most people are impressed by their accuracy, Pfeiffer said.

“People who have lived here for decades are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you got that bay on there. No one knows that bay is there,’ ” Skerrett said.

Skerrett said people’s reaction to the maps is powerful, almost visceral.

“It’s amazing to watch people get lost in it,” she said. “They’re checking to see if their place is on there. You start seeing them remember, ‘Oh, we had a cabin there.’ And they spend five minutes telling stories about different places. It’s great, I love it.”

Three months ago Skerrett decided to devote all of her time to the map company, appropriately named Theme Two. Place is the second theme of the National Council for Geographic Education’s five themes for teaching geography.

When Skerret and Pfeiffer started their first map, Lake Coeur d’Alene, in 2006, they were living in two different cities working full-time jobs so they spent months e-mailing ideas, suggestions and drafts back and forth.

The two met as teenagers, when Skerrett was attending Gonzaga Prep and Pfeiffer attended public school in Coeur d’Alene.

“She wasn’t an official Coeur d’Alene kid so we hung out with her just out of pity I guess,” Pfeiffer said. They kept in touch while Skerrett attended Washington State University and Pfeiffer was at the University of Idaho. Skerrett did environmental consulting in Los Angeles before and after attending graduate school at the University of Southern California. Pfeiffer worked in graphic design in Portland and is now a Web designer at North Idaho College.

Last year they both moved back to their hometown. Pfeiffer did it begrudgingly.

“My wife was the catalyst for coming back here,” he said. “But almost instantly I was like ‘I forgot how cool the people are.’ It sort of radiates around. For the most part, it’s a pretty easy town to live in, friendly folks.”

Retailers in the town warmed up to the duo’s creations pretty quickly. Pat Kovatch, who owns Angel Gallery in downtown Coeur d’Alene, is one of their main retailers.

“(Pat’s) the one who has really given us free reign,” Skerrett said. “She takes all the different medium that we use.”

“I think everyone loves the map or wants one or at least likes to look at it,” Kovatch said. “I’ve done very well with it.”

Now, the Theme Two map collection, which appears on professional grade parchment paper, stretch canvas and vintage wood, includes Lake Pend Oreille, Hayden Lake, Flathead Lake, Priest Lake, Lake Washington, Lake Chelan and Lake Tahoe.

But Lake Coeur d’Alene has always stood out.

“We love our lake,” Kovatch says. “We do.”

“It is one of the best looking lakes,” Pfeiffer agrees.

“Beautiful shape,” Skerrett adds.

“My earliest memories are being down on the south end of the lake. … We were lucky enough to be one of those families who was always on it,” Pfeiffer recalls.

“I remember Fourth of July on the houseboat tied up to other families that had them, watching the fireworks,” Skerrett says.

Next, the duo plans on releasing maps of islands and national parks.

Now people are coming out of the woodwork, Skerrett said, to talk about their maps and give them ideas and advice on future locales.

“That’s the kind of thing that makes you motivated to keep doing it,” Pfeiffer said. “People come out of nowhere for no reason other than they want to. We better keep doing this because that doesn’t happen very often.”