The first thing that you should know (if it's not already clear,) is that I'm incredibly proud of my map of Algonquin Park. I've put over four years into it as of version three and don't plan on stopping.
So why do it? Well, a couple of anecdotes tell the story. Both of these incidents happened on the first canoe trip I took a friend on which made for a rather interesting trip.
We had run into a few problems with portages that were on the map simply not existing on the ground; eventually it turned out that a key one - the last low maintenance one of the trip - also didn't exist. With that we were forced to turn around. We decided to take the most direct route back (a different one than the one we took to where we were,) and hence found ourselves in unfamiliar territory. We headed east on the southernmost bay as our map, the one created by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and published by the Friends of Algonquin, indicated. An hour or so later though we were quite confused since we found ourselves in a widening of the river - something than appeared to exist further east of the creek that was to connect to the south side of this bay. We traced the south side of the bay back to the main body of the lake finding nothing in disbelief. Finally, just as we decided to backtrack we noticed a small plastic indicator on a tree pointing the way. It turned out that there were three bays on this lake, not two with a creek jetting out to the south.
Later on we found ourselves on yet another new lake. This was actually the last lake before we would return to our original route and hence we were a bit excited that we'd be able to make it back successfully. The only problem was that we couldn't find the final portage! We'd seen it from the other side so we had confidence that it existed, but as we pushed over a log to get as close as we could to the seemingly unbroken shoreline in high waves we were in serious doubt. I ended up suggesting that we headed into the southernmost bay where it would be a bit calmer so that we could formulate a plan. Go figure, the portage (and lone campsite) were both in this bay - hundreds of metres from where they were indicated on the Friends of Algonquin Map.
After both incidents I repeatedly lobbied the MNR staff at the nearest access point to get the map fixed to no avail. Ironically, I later noticed that the second error was introduced after being correct on older editions of the map. Even more embarrassingly the other two companies that made maps of Algonquin Park - Chrismar and Backroad Mapbooks - had the same mistakes in them!
At that point in time I decided that I'd mark up a map of Algonquin Park digitally for my own purposes. I was amazed at how easy to do it was as well as how pleased I was with the result. A year and a half later I had made significant improvements and felt that it was ready for prime time and released it online. I had hoped to distribute a few hundred copies a year, but ended up giving away almost 15,000 copies.
A year later I released my second major public revision of the map and went on to distribute copies to over 135,000 unique people - making it the most distributed map of Algonquin Park.
When it was time to begin the third revision of the map I decided to do something most wouldn't have even dreamt of - re-creating it from scratch. The most recent version - Version 3.0 - is now much easier to maintain and is more accurate than ever before. It took over a year and a half of consistent labour to complete, and I think that shows.
As always, I'd appreciate your comments, corrections, or questions of any sort - with your help the map will only get better.
So why do it? Well, a couple of anecdotes tell the story. Both of these incidents happened on the first canoe trip I took a friend on which made for a rather interesting trip.
We had run into a few problems with portages that were on the map simply not existing on the ground; eventually it turned out that a key one - the last low maintenance one of the trip - also didn't exist. With that we were forced to turn around. We decided to take the most direct route back (a different one than the one we took to where we were,) and hence found ourselves in unfamiliar territory. We headed east on the southernmost bay as our map, the one created by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and published by the Friends of Algonquin, indicated. An hour or so later though we were quite confused since we found ourselves in a widening of the river - something than appeared to exist further east of the creek that was to connect to the south side of this bay. We traced the south side of the bay back to the main body of the lake finding nothing in disbelief. Finally, just as we decided to backtrack we noticed a small plastic indicator on a tree pointing the way. It turned out that there were three bays on this lake, not two with a creek jetting out to the south.
Later on we found ourselves on yet another new lake. This was actually the last lake before we would return to our original route and hence we were a bit excited that we'd be able to make it back successfully. The only problem was that we couldn't find the final portage! We'd seen it from the other side so we had confidence that it existed, but as we pushed over a log to get as close as we could to the seemingly unbroken shoreline in high waves we were in serious doubt. I ended up suggesting that we headed into the southernmost bay where it would be a bit calmer so that we could formulate a plan. Go figure, the portage (and lone campsite) were both in this bay - hundreds of metres from where they were indicated on the Friends of Algonquin Map.
After both incidents I repeatedly lobbied the MNR staff at the nearest access point to get the map fixed to no avail. Ironically, I later noticed that the second error was introduced after being correct on older editions of the map. Even more embarrassingly the other two companies that made maps of Algonquin Park - Chrismar and Backroad Mapbooks - had the same mistakes in them!
At that point in time I decided that I'd mark up a map of Algonquin Park digitally for my own purposes. I was amazed at how easy to do it was as well as how pleased I was with the result. A year and a half later I had made significant improvements and felt that it was ready for prime time and released it online. I had hoped to distribute a few hundred copies a year, but ended up giving away almost 15,000 copies.
A year later I released my second major public revision of the map and went on to distribute copies to over 135,000 unique people - making it the most distributed map of Algonquin Park.
When it was time to begin the third revision of the map I decided to do something most wouldn't have even dreamt of - re-creating it from scratch. The most recent version - Version 3.0 - is now much easier to maintain and is more accurate than ever before. It took over a year and a half of consistent labour to complete, and I think that shows.
As always, I'd appreciate your comments, corrections, or questions of any sort - with your help the map will only get better.
