ONTARIO MAPS

[+papa & the bears]

Is there a CDROM or site where one can download good Ontario maps for geocaching ? Will joining Groundspeak give me any better access to Onatrio maps ? What alternatives are other people using ?

Thanks - papa & the bears

[+Olar]

One of the great things about Geocaching is you can start off with a basic GPSR and a folding paper map from the corner store and have loads of enjoyment. You can slowly add to your arsenal over a period of time based on your caching experiences.

I have settled on:

• Fugawi mapping software and topos
• Microsoft Streets & Trips
• Softmap's Topos
• EasyGPS
• GeoBuddy
• Pocket Queries & Ebook on Palm PDA (requires membership)

After playing with all this stuff on the PC I actually find time to get out on the trails and find a cache or two.

Cheers, Olar

 

[lilkynan]

Go to one of the download sites - Limewire or Kazza and search for any map you want - ie - Garmin search

 

Good Luck

 

[+Couparangus]

It sounds like Olar has a vast repository of cartographic material at his fingertips! Myself, I use the Garmin Mapsource programme with my GPS unit (also a Garmin) and find it to be quite useful. Being a mild local history junkie, I find the most interesting maps to be the pre-war 1:65000 series topos. These are highly detailed and pretty accurate. They are also a window into the past and can be used to scout out some really interesting locations - some of which can make good Geocache hiding spots. I live near Toronto and just went to the Reference Library and photocopied them. You can get all of the map onto 4 11"x17" pages at 20 cents each, which is obviously dirt cheap. They have a LOT of different maps available there. I have also Fugawi which uses the 1:50000 maps series but is more up-to-date. Downside with this is you can't print the maps - extremely annoying. When dealing with maps it helps to know the numbering scheme used, ie I live on the 030M13 panel. Hope this helps! Cheers from Coupar-Angus

[Bradinn]

If you are looking for online sources for topographical maps, I can suggest a couple of good places to start, especially if you're looking for images to use with moving map software (OziExplorer, TrackMaker, etc.)

 

Firstly there is Toporama, which has images available of all of the NTS map sheets (as mentioned in the previous post). You can search for an area, or if you know the map number you are looking for you can search using that. The nice thing is that the corner datum for the maps is provided, and they can be easily set up in moving map software. Unfortunately they are low resolution, the retail versions of these maps are high res. The maps are all at 1:50000 scale.

 

The link for toporama is: http://toporama.cits.rncan.gc.ca/

 

If you are looking for something a little closer to home, and smaller scale which you can use for geocaching, you may run into the problem of having to spend a lot of money to obtain paper maps. The Ministry of Natural Resources does sell Ontario Base Maps which have most of the province mapped at 1:10000 which is a much more pleasant scale for plotting geocaching hikes, however to obtain a large area you need to buy a lot of maps. The Ministry does maintain an online viewer which you can use to view the maps, and if you have a great deal of patience, you can piece together a great and extremely usefull small scale map of any area you wish by using screen shots, I have done this for local areas and have had no complaints, everything aligned perfectly. Currently the Ministry does not sell softcopy versions of these maps, they must be obtained through dealers.....

 

Link to the MNR data warehouse for the online viewer: http://lioib.lio.mnr.gov.on.ca/lioib/uien/LIOIBSelectView.asp

 

Here is the link to an older post that describes the process of creating maps using the viewer:

http://opentopic.Groundspeak.com/0/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1750973553&f=5280962783&m=8030908135

 

Here is a link to a post that describes new information on dealers providing Tiff versions of the OBM maps:

http://opentopic.Groundspeak.com/0/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1750973553&f=5280962783&m=4710929854

DonnaG has posted excellent information about distributors who are now carrying GeoTiffs.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Gord

Team Bradinn

 

"When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."