Latest Map Releases

New Map Lake O'Hara    1:20 000    (New in May 2007)

Lake Louise & Yoho    1:50 000    (Updated August 2007)

Banff & Mt. Assiniboine    1:100 000    (Updated August 2007)

Canmore & Kananaskis Village    1:50 000    (Updated in 2007)

Kananaskis Lakes    1:50 000    (Updated May 2007)

Columbia Icefield    1:75 000    (Updated May 2007)

Why we are discontinuing relief shading

In a word, readability.
Over the years, we have received a great deal of feedback from hikers who told us that, although they liked the look of the relief shading, they found the text and contour lines on the darker background hard to read, especially in the field.

With the baby boomers' eyes aging (the majority of the people who use our maps are baby boomers), readability is becoming more of an issue every year. And, as our eyes are also getting a little less sharp than they used to be, we, too, are starting to feel the frustration of trying to read black text and brown contour lines over a dark background.

There are other issues as well, such as the fact that, in 15 years, we have not been able to get reliable consistency in color of the relief shading at the printing press. In spite of using the same color specifications on every map, what we got back from the printer varied widely, from acceptably light to unacceptably dark, depending on the particular press and pressman.
With our recent return to printing our maps on paper (see next FAQ), we foresaw even more problems, as the relief shading would print even darker on paper, due to increased absorption of the ink.

In spite of all of these issues, the return to traditional topographic colors was still a difficult decision for us.
Roger Nelson, co-owner of the company, developed his own process for producing relief shading at a time when very little had been done in this area and a large computer file was 5 or 10 megabytes. Many times he left files to process overnight and came back in the morning to find the computer had crashed and he had to start his experimentation over again. So we have taken great pride in developing the relief shading used on our maps and, over the years, making it part of our "signature" look.

Certainly, the traditional topo colors of white and light green don't make topo map reading intuitive like the relief shading did, nor do they have the same impresssive visual impact as the relief shading does. But we do hope that the improved readability of the maps will help to make up for that.
Form or function. Basically, it came down to that. And we chose function.

In the meantime, we are sorry if you are disappointed by the change, and urge you to email us and let us know if you feel strongly about it. We are sensitive to your feedback and, as much as we are able, will continue to base our decisions on what map-users want.

Why we are going back to printing our maps on paper, rather than on waterproof material

Over the last ten years or so, during the time we have been printing on waterproof material, we have absorbed much of the cost of the wastage ourselves, trying to keep the price of the maps down for the map-user and hoping for better days ahead. To try to cut costs as much as possible, we bought the waterproof material directly from the manufacturer, had it shipped here, warehoused it ourselves and apportioned it out to the printer each time we printed a map.

However, with decreased visitors (and hence sales) to the national parks after 9-11, a subsequent slowdown in rubber-tire traffic from the USA because of changing passport regulations, the price of gas and now the rising Canadian dollar, we have had to change the way we do things in these new market conditions.

Although many map-users have told us that they are willing to pay more for a waterproof map, what many people aren't aware of is that the majority of our maps (up to 85 percent of them) are purchased in the national parks by short-stay visitors to the area, for whom price point is an important consideration.

That said, this winter (2007-2008) we are arranging to plot a limited number of the Kananaskis maps on waterproof material and make them available through a few of our larger retailers, starting with Map Town in Calgary. These waterproof maps will likely be $20.00 to $24.00 each, to reflect our real costs. If this "test run" sells well, we will look at also plotting a limited number of our National Park maps (for Banff, and Lake Louise) on waterproof material. In the meantime, we are looking into whether or not the waterproof material on the plotter is tear-proof, and whether or not you can print on the back of it.

If you would like to be kept posted as to the progress of the waterproof Kananaksis maps, send us an email, and we'll keep you informed.

In the meantime, to keep your map dry on the trail, may we suggest that you slip it into a plastic watertight map case. Of the many brands available, we like the ones made by Seal Point Line. For more information, please see Waterproof Map Cases.

Hopefully, this has given you some background explaining why we have made this change.

GPS Trail Data Acquisition

Many of the trails on our maps have been up-dated using GPS data acquisition. We do this with a survey-quality GPS (Global Positioning System) which takes an electronic breadcrumb trail as we hike or bike the trails (our favorite part of map making).

Once we're back in the office, we download the file into our computer.

To date, of the more than four thousand kilometres of trails shown on our maps, we've collected GPS data on approximately two-thirds of them.

If you have any comments or suggestions, or have a good-quality GPS and would like to help us with GPSing the trails (mainly, it's the longer, more remote trails that still need GPSIng), please e-mail us at maps@gemtrek.com