I'm not sure where I have and haven't shared this, but the question often arises regarding the scale of the Northern Tier. 

Why are they 1 mile hexes? Isn't that too densely packed? 

Or something similar. And my answer is, "Well, maybe." 

But have you ever hiked in the deep wilderness in Western Pennsylvania (the Allegheny National Forest). When you are off trail, a mile is a lot of territory to cover and as I've wandered the rugged terrain up here, I've imagined that I'm looking for the entrance to the MacGuffin cave that is hidden in this one square mile of terrain... and it could take hours to find. Sure, I can probably hike through the terrain at about 2 miles an hour... but that's a relatively straight shot across two hexes - not looking for something. 

So it occurs to me that there ought to be something interesting in each 1 mile hex. Not necessarily something magical or, heck, even useful, but something to find, something to experience. Plus, the Northern Tier is Faerie Wood, so there ought to be some more densely packed weird and magical... stuff. 

So I like the idea of one mile hexes and having something in each hex, even if it's only a bear's den or an area coming back from a fire. 

As I've worked on expanding and updating the Northern Tier, I bounce back and forth between keying every one mile hex (I believe it's about 400!!) and keying important hexes and creating random tables to generate interesting content for the unkeyed hexes (not unlike the old Wilderlands but on a micro scale). Regardless, the new Northern Tier will still be at 1 mile hexes and the intent is that there will still be something (at LEAST one thing) interesting in each hex.