How to Encode Trade Routes in Stories

I've wondered if some of the weirder stories in the Bible are really an old map for trade routes. A celestial map was necessary for blue-water navigation prior to GPS and accurate mechanical clocks (GPS is really just a super accurate electronic clock) or maybe even before any navigational instruments like sextants. How would that work?

North-South position determination can be made by observation of the height of the sun above the horizon at noon, which can be made with pretty simple tools--a stick and a compass. It can also be determined by observation of the constellations at sunrise (or sunset) on a given day.

So if you were sailing back in the olden days and you left port on the same day people always did, if you made an observation every morning or evening the appearance of the constellations over the course of time would provide some crude feedback for your north south position. Maybe eventually that turns into a story with all the weird characters and events of some mythological stories being a replay of the appearance of the sky along a particular route.