The end of paper topo maps in Canada...

[snoboy]

Apparently our federal governement wants out of the business of printing paper maps. As of January you will be downloading PDFs of the maps and finding someone to print them for you...

 

Sux if you live in the bush, or want a nice crisply printed map, or for many other reasons...

 

Web page with better info.

[PaulB]

Well, that sucks. While I'm a big fan of digital maps, I'm not sure that it's in the best interest of the general public for the government to stop producing paper maps.

[BackCountryPunk]

Tell your friends, tell your family. Lets get some emails going. I know getting involved isn't a distinctly Canadian thing to do, but lets try it anyways.

[murraysovereign]

Maybe the headline should read "The end of government-produced paper topo maps in Canada"? As long as the data files are available, and there's sufficient demand for paper topo maps, someone (Clover Point Cartographics, for instance, or Map Connection, or ...) will probably provide them. Hell, I might invest in a large-format printer for the shop and start producing them myself if there's enough demand. So I wouldn't worry about paper topos disappearing altogether - I'll just have to buy them from a different supplier. Government used to have a monopoly on distributing alcohol, too, but since they gave it up I haven't noticed a shortage of beer, wine and spirits. In fact, the stuff is more readily available now than it ever was under provincial control.

[PaulB]

Maybe the headline should read "The end of government-produced paper topo maps in Canada"?

It's also going to affect products such as the Etopo and Fugawi digital maps, which are simply scanned images of NRC maps packaged with calibration data.

 

As long as the data files are available, and there's sufficient demand for paper topo maps, someone (Clover Point Cartographics, for instance, or Map Connection, or ...) will probably provide them.

Good point. I wonder what the price difference is between simply copying printed maps (as per above) versus buying a license or paying royalites for the raw data.

 

Wasn't the high cost of topo data one of the reasons that Lyle's ice map project never made it to market?

[jordop]

Government used to have a monopoly on distributing alcohol, too, but since they gave it up I haven't noticed a shortage of beer, wine and spirits. In fact, the stuff is more readily available now than it ever was under provincial control.

 

Funny, I just saw a guy in a dumpster on Cordova gettin totally wrecked off a copy of 92 J/2

[murraysovereign]

Funny, I just saw a guy in a dumpster on Cordova gettin totally wrecked off a copy of 92 J/2

 

I don't doubt it: that's the sheet for Whistler. You can get, like, sooo stoned just standing next to the Whistler map - ask Ross Rebagliatti.

[snoboy]

One sheet of TRIM data from Clover Point costs $40 +/- vs $$12ish per sheet for NTS. I know it's not a direct comparision, but it's one I can easily make of the top of my head.

 

Most of us do not have access to large format printers, and they cost a lot. They also produce a lower quality product than commercial printing.

 

For sure there will be excellent companies like CP, but they will be fragmented, there will be no more one stop shopping... or maybe there will?

 

So right now Murray, if you want a map of Bum$&*k Manitoba, I bet you can tell me exactly where to order it from, right? And you can include it with your other map orders... It seems that it could get kinda messy if this happens.

 

The other problem could be that the cost of owning data sets for all these out of the way places is going to be high, and the suppliers may balk.

[philfort]

Go to a library and photocopy them! Cheap if B&W is ok... I spent a lot of time in the geography library in college, expanding my map collection thusly...

[murraysovereign]

I agree it will take a while for new suppliers to emerge, and in the transition it will be a PITA, but I doubt we'll be without access to paper topos for very long.

 

Your Clover Point example is for the 1:30,000 amalgamation of 4 TRIM sheets into one. The regular 1:20,000 TRIM sheets retail at $17.95, vs $11.45 for the current 1:50,000 from Ottawa. So you pay about 50% more for TRIM, which is not bad considering you're getting more than twice as much detail. I wouldn't be surprised if they could produce 1:50,000 topos for pretty close to current retails, assuming the government doesn't soak them for the rights to the data.

Edited October 3, 2006 by murraysovereign

[snoboy]

My example is actually for the GEOTIFF data CD's/sheet - that is one 1:20K for $40, but then you can print off as many as you want, or make your own maps with custom roues etc, as soon as you get that large format printer.

 

BTW, if you get a LF printer, then you best get an extra few GB of email storage...

[northvanclimber]

gov't "shreds" plans

 

looks like all the complaining worked!

[northvanclimber]

dang. the link got moved. here's the text:

 

Canada shreds plan to scrap paper maps

Last Updated: Thursday, October 12, 2006 | 10:37 AM ET

CBC News

 

The Canada Map Office has found its way out of the scrap heap.

The previous Liberal government decided to close the map office, which provides regional dealers with large-scale topographical maps that show details about terrain and elevation. The plan had been to move to digital maps only.

But Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced Wednesday that the Conservative government has yanked that plan off its course, and the map office will remain open.

Kathleen Olson, a spokeswoman for Lunn, said Natural Resources Canada received a flood of letters protesting the planned closure.

"We did start seeing a lot of commotion around the idea of this office closing," Olson said.

"The minister wanted to find out more about it and once he did, he quickly realized that this is not something he wanted to see happen."

Paper maps vital

Map librarian Heather McAdam was among the many who cried out against the plan to provide the maps only over the internet for Canadians to download and print themselves.

McAdam, who works at Carleton University, said that won't help the third of Canadian households that don't have internet access.

And she said many Canadians prefer paper maps to digital ones because they can be spread out to show a much wider area at once.

"When you want to plan something or you want to look at something, you have to see the beginning and the end," she said.

"How do you look at that on a screen?"

[MysticNacho]

Is there any kind of topo program that covers BC like the one that covers all 50 states in the US?

[PaulB]

Is there any kind of topo program that covers BC like the one that covers all 50 states in the US?

Not sure what your definition of "topo program" is, but there are a few options depending on your needs:

 

1) The online BC Basemap viewer. See the sticky posted at the top of this forum for more info.

 

2) Digital copies of the NRC maps are available from Etopo and Fugawi. The Fugawi package covers all of BC for CAD$100 while Etopo requires that you buy five packages, each for CAD$100 to cover the whole province. Both products come with map viewing software, but if you wan to use them with a GPS you have to buy something like OziExplorer for the Etopo maps, or Fugawi's Global Navigator.

 

3) There is also the online Atlas Of Canada which lets you view the NRC topo maps and print out small areas of interest.