New canoe maps to replace government brochures
Guides show routes around city and territory in greater detail than those provided by GNWT
Meagan Leonard
Northern News Services
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Department of Industry Tourism and Investment will no longer be printing its paddling guides after the successful launch of new canoe maps by Yellowknife company Arctic Tern.
New maps produced by Yellowknife company Arctic Tern provide information on paddling routes through areas such as the Cameron River, seen here in August 2014. - Erin Steele/NNSL photo
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Discouraged by the lack of canoeing resources in the territory, Dwayne Wohlgemuth and Leanne Robinson used their knowledge of NWT paddling routes to create accessible maps of area rivers and now their guides will be the go-to resource for tourists and local adventurers.
ITI acting spokesperson Megan Holsapple said the department will not be distributing the maps but the new guides will effectively replace the out-of-date brochures offered by the government.
"The maps . are updated and available to the public so there wouldn't be much benefit in reprinting our old canoe route brochures or producing new ones," she said in an e-mail to Yellowknifer. "It's great to see a private business providing information to the public and tourists about our spectacular NWT."
Wohlgemuth and Robinson have spent much of the last seven years traversing many of the North's waterways but were discouraged by the poor quality of available guides.
Wohlgemuth said they were inspired to start the project during a canoe trip in the Yukon. Stopping to visit a bookstore there, they noticed an entire section of canoeing resources and wanted to bring something similar to the NWT so paddling could become more accessible.
"There's like one old book from the 80s for the NWT," he said with a laugh. "It's not like we don't have good canoe routes or good rivers, it's just that nobody has ever made canoeing maps."
He said, the lack of resources meant they were creating their own maps anyway so they decided it wouldn't take much more work to produce them on a larger scale for the public.
"We were always kind of downloading our own maps from natural resources Canada and cropping them and editing them," Wohlgemuth explained. "We thought it was a way to make our canoe trips more significant and contribute to other people getting out and share the knowledge we gain from doing these routes."
So far they have created six maps covering 10 popular routes in the Yellowknife area and are now working on expanding to longer, territory-wide treks - some that will take two to three weeks to paddle. He said the routes they've completed so far are similar to those published in ITI tourism brochures because they are most popular with tourists, adding they identified a number of problems with the current guides and wanted to update them right away.
"Those brochures are horrible, they have mistakes, the maps are useless," he said. "I've heard a few stories of people getting lost."
Wohlgemuth says he regularly takes notes while he is paddling and has used this information to create detailed descriptions of each route so paddlers know what to expect.
"We provide a description of what kind of skills they need, whether there's white water on the routes and the difficulty. We also outline all the portages and give a general route description," he said, adding the idea was to have all the relevant information in one place.
"The maps are a one-stop resource so people don't need to go find any other resource - they can just buy our map and go."
Current maps include: Jennjohn Lake, Pensive Lake loop, Powder Point to Yellowknife River Bridge, Reid Lake to Powder Point and Hidden Lake, Tibbitt Lake and Trough Lake loop, and Tibbitt Lake to Reid Lake. Territorial maps in the works will feature routes though La Martre, Yellowknife, Coppermine, Parent, Monfwi, Beaulieu, Marion and Emile rivers.
The maps are currently available at the Book Cellar, Overlander Sports and the Yellowknife tourism office.
