A career takes a different turn
Glen Vienneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Feb 09/01) - "Get a map or get lost," is the greeting which hangs at the entrance.
The Map Place, a division of Tgit Geomatics Ltd. on Franklin Ave., is where Terry Hauff offers Northerners a selection of more than 4,000 maps.
"It's more a case of dealing with the purchasing aspect and making sure we got the inventory," Hauff said, about a typical day in his shop.
That is when he is not busy helping his customers to find the right map or assisting the RCMP search and rescue team with an emergency mission.
Hauff first came North in 1972 from Lloydminster, Alta after completing two years of technical training in Calgary.
But after a couple of years, he returned to Calgary for studies in geomatics engineering (map surveying).
After four years, Hauff returned to the North and eventually worked for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs as a consultant for the survey and mapping programs.
It was during his last year when Hauff branched out into the field of selling, which had accumulated in the department's stockpile.
But, when the department got out of sales in 1994, Hauff's opportunity decided to take over and opened up his shop.
"That's how it evolved, I didn't go into the industry looking at running a retail shop."
Since then, Hauff's company, The Map Place, has published its own maps for the NWT including one's that focus on a snowmobile trails and winter roads.
"What we decided to do is show all the old mines, because that's really what the roads were for -- to get to those mine sites," Hauff said about the first winter road map edition.
Based on research from active, abandoned and newly discovered mine sites he obtained from the mine records office, Hauff and staff set out to determine road patterns of the Northern winter roads.
Peering through a 3D stereoscopic loop, he traced the road pattern over a map obtained from the federal government. For the most part Hauff buys maps from the federal government and from private businesses for resale.
The Map Place's clients include biologists, explorers, aviators, mining companies, the military, the GNWT, hunters and trappers or anyone dropping by the shop.
The business side of Hauff's work in goematics alone can be demanding.
"Trying to sort out in your mind problems of the past day and how to deal with the next day, setting your priorities," he said about the reoccurring woes of shipping.
Something Hauff continues to do on a smaller scale is consulting work for engineering companies doing road or mine site planning or for those doing community growth planning.
Ironically, Hauff feels overlooked by the same government he once worked for.
"Just for a few dollars, it seems we are losing contracts from the south all the time, which doesn't help us grow and continue to offer other services."
