What Your Map Doesn't Show Could Change Everything

Jeff McMurtrie returns to our podcast with exciting news about his meticulously crafted wilderness maps that have transformed how paddlers experience Ontario's backcountry. Having spent over 700 days exploring these waterways, Jeff brings unparalleled expertise to his cartography – revealing hidden gems that most travelers miss and preventing potentially frustrating navigational errors.

The newest additions to his collection include updated Killarney and French River maps with 50% more detail, innovative portage elevation profiles, and an extensive catalog of points of interest. Perhaps most exciting is the announcement of a refreshed Temagami map coming this summer and a new East French River map that completes the coverage from Georgian Bay to Lake Nipissing when combined with his other maps.

What makes these maps special goes beyond their accuracy. Jeff's thoughtful design elements – like showing creek width proportional to reality and using distinctive "penciled in" styling for extremely challenging routes – reflect his deep understanding of what paddlers actually need on the water. The maps document everything from waterfalls and swimming holes to historic sites and spring water sources, creating what Jeff calls "that extra dimension" that transforms a good trip into an unforgettable one.

Each physical map purchase includes digital versions in five different formats (high-resolution JPEG, Avenza Maps with GPS functionality, Garmin GPS, Google Earth 3D, and GeoTIFF), ensuring paddlers can use them however best suits their style. Jeff shares that user feedback has been invaluable in refining these resources – from identifying changed conditions to suggesting new features that improve usability.

Whether you're planning your first backcountry trip or your fiftieth, these maps provide both essential navigation tools and unexpected discoveries. Check out mapsbyjeff.com or visit your local outdoor retailer to get your hands on these game-changing wilderness guides before your next paddling adventure.

https://mapsbyjeff.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction to Jeff McMurtry
• 0:53 Jeff's Map Portfolio and Updates
• 6:09 Map Design and Trail Difficulty Features
• 16:53 Points of Interest on Wilderness Maps
• 26:15 Feedback Process and Map Improvements
• 35:11 Adventure Story: Spring Trip Bushwhacking Tale
• 43:36 Digital Map Formats and Availability

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and good day. Hey, welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

Speaker 2: 0:04

I'm Tim.

Speaker 1: 0:04

And we are from supergoodcampingcom. We're here because we are on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and enjoy camping adventures such as we have as a family. Today's guest is a gentleman we had the pleasure to chat with just over a year ago. Feel free to go back and listen to that episode. He loves to camp, particularly via canoe, and he is excellent at his chosen profession. Please welcome our Vigor de Deity in the Ontario backcountry community, jeff McMurtry. Of Maps by Jeff Yay welcome.

Speaker 3: 0:31

Good morning.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Good morning.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Thanks for stopping by, man.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Yeah, I love it. What a beautiful Sunday morning.

Speaker 2: 0:37

So the first thing I would like to do is correct an oops that we made last time, at least I'm pretty sure wrecked and oops that we made last time, at least I'm pretty sure I. We talked about maps and, and in particular you had spanky new algonquin, the, the purple ones, but I don't think we listed all the parks that you have mapped. Do me a favor, tell us, tell us what you've mapped out before yeah, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3: 0:59

So, as you're saying, it's been a long time, lots of maps, uh. So, as you said, there's a bronco to start. And then I've got Killarney. That was, I think, the second place I ever did.

Speaker 2: 1:09

I've got French River, kortha Highlands, massasauga and from a long time ago, tamagami, right. Okay, so there's my second question. That's sort of what tweaked in my brain, because I didn't realize you had a Tamagami map. It's digital. Why is it only digital? Out of curiosity, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:31

No good question. So when I first had released it there were waterproof printed copies too, but unfortunately that was kind of around the time I had some business partner problems, had to leave Jeff's Maps that's where I had created them at that time. After that, I still owned, I came to understand I still owned the copyright to the map, but I didn't have any more waterproof ones around. Some actually exciting news is that this summer there should be some new waterproof ones. I'm doing some updates and corrections and that sort of thing. Again, I don't have a firm timeline. That's kind of what I'm actually about to start working on, but July-ish.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Looking forward to it. That's excellent.

Speaker 1: 2:17

As you were listing the different ones. I know him and his eyes like check, check, check oh need that one Check. Check.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Yeah, very true, because him in it's how he's like check, check, check. Oh, need that one. Yeah, very true, because I do, I have, I have everything except the tomogami one and I was I was looking at it going 2014.

Speaker 3: 2:35

I wonder if he's gonna update that yeah, no, I mean, it's been something I want to do for a long time and you know there's just always so many projects. So for all those years it was the Algonquin one, and then you know I've been working on updating, like the Killarney and stuff, to add some of those features I'd added a year ago, and so you know that's where the Tomogami map was sort of on the list for after. So here we are, you know.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Sweet, sweet. So we've got the tomogamy map to look forward to what? And if you're tweaking other ones, what? Give us all the news? What's what's happening? What's happening with your stuff, man?

Speaker 3: 3:16

yeah, no, hey, um, so uh, I've got uh coming out very soon a new calorni map as well as west River. So I've had both those for a number of years. But I've added the features I added to Algonquin First, to these guys. So I've got things like for the portages there's a little side view showing where the hills are. I've got more points of interest. I've zoomed them in about 50%. So I've done that with Algonquin first, where essentially, rather than having the map on a single side and a bunch of text on the back, now I've got a map on both sides. So I've done that for the Killarney and French River too. And really especially, I guess with that extra zoom it's both allowed me to sort of space things out a bit, so stuff isn't quite as crammed in, but also it's, let me add, a lot more detail, a lot more information that otherwise there wasn't space for. So that's pretty exciting.

Speaker 3: 4:11

And then on top of the Killarney and the West French River I've also now got an East French River map, so essentially the West French River.

Speaker 3: 4:20

One had gone from Killarney in particular there's Point Grandin, kind of on Georgian Bay, so they'd gone from there to roughly Highway 69, just a little bit past that, and so then the East French River clicks into that. It goes from essentially Highway 69 all the way up to Lake Nipissing, and so then it covers the whole French River. And actually, if you do end up getting all three maps, you get like digitally you get a single file covering Killarney and then the whole French River. And actually, if you do end up getting all three maps, you get like digitally you get a single file covering Killarney and then the whole French River. So you're going all the way from Lake Huron across the whole Northern Georgian Bay and then up to Lake Nipissing. So yeah, that's the current very exciting thing. I had just finished that as we're recording. It's at the printer right now and I think when this is released it'll be pretty darn close.

Speaker 2: 5:10

Sweet, sweet. I have to make a point of giving a shout out to, or give a shout to, alex and Jess. They've got sorry Tents and Timber. Yeah, we've been talking about doing a trip together and one of the things they're trying to combine it into cause they've got a. They've got a block of time that they can. They can get out and paddle. They were talking about doing the French river from Nipissing and I pulled out my French river map and went oh, it doesn't go all the way Now. Now, now they can spend money and they can plan it better. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 5:51

So one question I had was when you're mapping, is it every single inch of the area that you're mapping, or are there parts where you're like this is really too rough, it doesn't really have anywhere for people to go, or it's a protected area, or it's a sensitive area we don't really want people to be traversing around in there, is it? Do you kind of pick and choose how much detail you go into in certain areas or you just this is the whole thing oh, that's a really good question.

Speaker 3: 6:18

Um, you know, I am certainly receptive to concerns about particular spots or issues, but, uh, speaking again, other than, I guess, very, very, very particular situations, it would really just be, you know, add all the info this right yeah, um, yeah yeah, yeah, just so.

Speaker 3: 6:40

You want people to know, everywhere where they're going out, the options of places to go yeah, I mean, that's where I guess kind of an add on to that is one of the things I've learned over time is. Well, in a sense it's obvious, right, but different people have different things. They want to experience different sort of levels of pain they're willing to go through to get there, through to get there. And you know the maps I make, they're certainly very paddling, specific, right, so they're not for, you know, snowmobiling or ATVing or that sort of thing, but within the paddling realm I certainly do try to cover everything from maybe what a first timer might want to do all the way up to somebody who's into bushwhacking and exploring off trail. And so that certainly is a challenge in terms of presenting the information to make sure that, again, like you know, the new person or the person who's looking for a nice relaxing trip isn't finding themselves bushwhacking through the middle of nowhere and so on.

Speaker 3: 7:42

Some of the previous maps, the Unlostify ones, I'd first added these color-coded root difficulties, right, so there was yellow, orange and red and white as well for sort of first-timer stuff, but the idea being that it was typical, challenging, very difficult, and one of the things I found at one point is that some people you know, had a different understanding of what does very difficult mean. Right, because when I had done that, when I added that, first I thought, oh, this is great, right, because I can show stuff that maybe some people don't want to do Because, see, it says right there very difficult in red, right. But yeah, like I said, some people have a different understanding of very difficult and I guess, in particular, I really remember there was a review of the Kortha Highlands map, an old version, on the MEC website, and this person I feel so bad for them, right, but this person was very upset because they had done one of these red, very difficult routes and I guess, to put it mildly, it was not what they were hoping for, because they had done one of these red, very difficult routes and I guess, to put it mildly, it was not what they were hoping for, right, and it was funny, right, because I'm like, oh, I've had friends who've done this, in particular, brad Jennings explored that country. He had done that, had a lot of fun, and then a couple other people have done it, but again, it's a mindset thing, right, and so what I'd done, I guess, to sort of address that is, starting with the Algonquin maps.

Speaker 3: 9:10

I decided well, again, I still want to show these routes because I enjoy them, some other people enjoy them, but again, you want to make sure that the right people are doing them. So rather than putting them as red, I decided to show them as like penciled in and there's big warnings on them saying you know, this is really tough and you probably shouldn't do this Right. And so if somebody wants to do it, great, they can. But you know they've been warned and I guess the key of the pencil sort of style look is it doesn't look like the other roots. So there still are the yellow, orange and red. But essentially, if you're doing one of those normal routes, there's degrees of pain, degrees of difficulty, but there's still a trail right and you don't have to know anything about. You know bushwhacking or whitewater or whatever right, if you put one foot in front of the other, you will get there. So I thought that was kind of an interesting sort of problem.

Speaker 3: 10:06

And certainly since I'd done that with Yogantham once first. Now on these new ones, I've certainly not heard of anybody accidentally doing one of them.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Yeah, that's good and you're absolutely right, different people, different perspectives, but also, as like I remember, I remember, you know, go go back a bunch of years, um, that, uh, what, what? You know, if I, if I did one of your yellow routes, you know, it might, might have been a little bit of a challenge at the time. Now it's like I don't even, I don't even think about it, other than looking at that. That's a four kilometer portage, maybe not, not not particularly the interest putting that kind of miles on, but as far as difficulty goes, it's like, yeah, I can do that in my sleep. So there's always that, there's that as you gain experience, it changes your perception of the difficulty of a route.

Speaker 2: 10:59

Yeah absolutely Cool and I and just for the record, I think the side profile thing that you've got for portages is genius. I can't believe that that never occurred before. Like it's just, it's that. So you look at it, you go perfect, I can do that and I know where I'm going to run into trouble, whatever. That's excellent.

Speaker 3: 11:21

Yeah, I mean that was I really enjoy, I guess, designing new features because something like that. Like you're saying, right, like I didn't go and find it on some other map and say, hey, that's a great idea, I should do that here, right, you know you got to figure out, okay, what's. What's the sort of question somebody is asking, right, so people obviously ask you know, hey, is this a flat portage, is this a steep portage? That sort of thing. And at least my perspective going into it was that you know, a long portage, sure it's long, but you can always take breaks, right, but a steep portage, it can be short and it can be the sort of thing that's burned into your mind because you know you're trying to walk up this thing, the front of your canoe is like banging into the trail in front of you. There's no spot to take a break because you're, you know you're going up the incline.

Speaker 3: 12:16

And so the question then comes down to like, okay, so this is, you know you want to show this to people, but how do you do it? Right, how do you make sure? Cause they're little, little portage graphs right on the map there, I don't know, like in not even an inch right, maybe a centimeter and a half by a centimeter. So how do you make something so small but still make sure that people can read that maybe in bad lighting conditions, whatever and understand you know what they're going to be up against? So there's all sorts of little design stuff in there to sort of make that happen. But yeah, I certainly enjoy that challenge.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Well, and is there an indication of the like? As you said? Like there's the steepness, but there's also the quality of what you're walking on. Is it? Is it a rock garden that you're walking through? Is it a? Is it just a flat like ground somebody has walked through many times? Like, is there a way to indicate that?

Speaker 3: 13:09

Oh, that's a great question. No, that's something that's I don't do right now and I've been like thinking about and the question that I have to figure out is how do you, how do you, I guess, categorize that? But it is very valid, right? So this has come up once or twice. Where a Gawkin, for example right, that's where I'm most familiar, but sort of the Northeast side of the park along the Padua river, there are a number of portages where you're walking over this like shaly stuff, like small rocks, and every time you take a step you're on sort of the side of a hill at times. So every time you take a step, you know the gravelly stuff underneath your feet, you know moves and you hear it rolling downhill and whatever, and certainly that is a lot more challenging than just a dirt path. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's something I definitely want to add and it's simply a matter of figuring out, like, what are the categories or how do you present that in a digestible way? But it's a very valid point.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Yeah, I just that made me just think about yeah that made me just think about camper Christina. Sucky muck is a phrase that she uses, right, and I've been places that she's been, but I've done them in a dry season.

Speaker 1: 14:31

No, sucky muck very how do you put, yeah, how do you put that on a map to go?

Speaker 2: 14:37

this is. It's really challenging if you're there in may because it's it's wet as all get out. You know you're up to the top of your boots. You're probably going to get your boots sucked right off of your feet, um, but in july, not so much yeah, no, I mean, that's where sometimes I'll add notes for that sort of stuff.

Speaker 3: 14:54

But that certainly is the challenge, right? Yeah, and especially, um, you know, to your point, I'd love to do it in a more holistic way, right?

Speaker 2: 15:03

um, so, yeah, it's very much on my mind yeah, must, must, must suck to wake up at two o'clock in the morning dreaming about maps or going right.

Speaker 1: 15:14

Oh, how can I add that? How can I make this look like that?

Speaker 3: 15:18

You know I find that a lot of fun, sort of working on the same project for a long time, like now it's been. I started this thing like 19 years ago. I was like late high school, early university. But the reason I find it a lot of fun is because, almost to your point, it's always neat to be figuring out how can I do better at this, what are again better ways I can convey this information. Sometimes it can be, you know, figuring out how do you categorize things like we're talking about. Sometimes it can be, you know, just figuring out, like what should the icon look like? Because ideally you know there's the map legend explaining everything, but ideally you want things to be as explanatory as possible. Snapshot.

Speaker 2: 16:02

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:04

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So how do you sort of again, I have ideas of what I'm trying to communicate in my head. I try to, you know, put them into these symbols and colors and icons and, you know, transmit that to the person on the other end. And so, you know, sometimes that works really well. Sometimes there can be confusion and that's where, again, you're always trying to to think about how can I improve.

Speaker 1: 16:26

Then, you know, well, yeah, and so, speaking of that, like all the things that are on your maps, there's I mean, there's the topography, as tim said, of the, of the portages, there's points of interest, as you said. So there's a waterfall here and you might want to alter your route so that you can take in the beauty of that waterfall. But, yeah, just tell us about some of the icons that are on your maps.

Speaker 3: 16:50

So, as you're saying, there's quite a variety of stuff. It's all the sort of bonus bits along the way. You certainly have a fun trip if you didn't see this stuff. But, um, again, to me it's like you know you're talking soaking in the beauty of a waterfall, right, it really these points of interest can add this extra dimension to the trip, right, sometimes that's where the special memories come from. So, uh, yeah, I've got quite a variety. I think there's like 20, 20 odd sort of types of points of interest.

Speaker 3: 17:24

So, um, there's things in a sort of historic category, historic category, uh, like old, old ranger cabins, uh, fire towers, other sort of buildings and artifacts, a lot of logging stuff from, you know, 120, 150 years ago, that sort of era. Um, you know painting spots, right, so you know, especially in Killarney and and that sort of area, uh, but even in Ogonquin and some other spots you've got, you know, the group of seven did a lot of painting and so there's a bunch of sort of iconic paintings where you can go to that spot, which is kind of cool. You know big cliffs and rock outcrops, lookout points, I mean that's where, again, especially with Killarney, right, it's got these big mountains, the little cloche mountains, and so you get some amazing viewpoints. What else have I got so old-growth forests, forest fire sites Again, I was talking about French River.

Speaker 3: 18:24

There was a huge fire back in 2018. And, of course, in a sense, it's quite destructive, but fire happens in nature, and so now you go back to the same areas and you get to see that regrowth happening, know, springing back, and that transition from the burn forest to eventually what will be, you know, big trees again, many, many years from now yeah, well, just to interject uh oh yeah, our eldest and I um did the french well, I don't know, maybe three years ago, something like that, and we actually saw the end of the burn.

Speaker 2: 18:59

We're looking across at rocks and and blackened trees, like it was. It was wild to look at that and then go green.

Speaker 3: 19:10

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly right, and uh, you know, to me, all these, these points of interest, they again, they add that extra dimension to the trip. They help you, I think, in a sense, understand the world differently, right? So, whether historic sites, you understand the people that have come before you, or you know earth science, life science, again, to see the fire, like that, it's something that I think you can think about in a very academic sense like, oh, it's a big. I think you can think about in a very academic sense like, oh, it's a big fire and things happen and there's, you know, transitions that happen in terms of growth, whatever. But it's another thing to stand there and be like, wow, that's crazy, yeah, yeah absolutely it was.

Speaker 2: 19:52

It was pretty mind-blowing to just to just go that that was the. That's where it stopped burning. It couldn't make the jump right like holy mackerel. That's crazy. Very yeah, exactly. So sorry, sorry, continue on.

Speaker 3: 20:05

No, no, no, I mean, you're sort of making the point for me, but uh, again, I guess I I'd even touched on that there that there's some earth science stuff, life life science stuff, um, a sort of random fun one is. Uh, there's some spots where you can like grab an ice cream bar mid-trip, which is just like a neat, weird thing.

Speaker 3: 20:28

You know, tim didn't know about those spots, yeah, you know it's like in algonquin there's, for example, there's not a ton of spots, but uh, when I was young it was always me and my dad, my brother, were on trips and we do a lot of like 20, 23 day that sort of thing trips and the way we would do it is we would start sort of down near highway 60 in Algonquin and we do big loops right in 20, whatever days, but very roughly about halfway along We'd stop at Brent, which is sort of an old railway town in the sort of top, middle of a park, and again, nowadays it's more of a cottage community but there is a little store there and so it was a huge highlight of the trip.

Speaker 3: 21:12

When you go in you grab an ice cream or a pop or bag of chips or whatever, right After you know 10 plus days. So you know it's just little memories, like I was saying right, little tidbits along the way and then I've got swimming spots and spring water and spring water again, you know I'm sort of evoking memories as I'm talking, right, but I remember sort of plenty of times where it's like August and it's like 30 something degrees out and you you take your Nalgene and you fill it with spring water and that thing like frosts up. You know there's nothing better, right, and we're almost on this list. But there's, especially in Killarney there's some super clear lakes, of course, waterfalls fishing, so in a sense, you know there's something for everyone, right?

Speaker 1: 22:07

Absolutely Well, as you said, like it just adds that extra layer. I would come back from a trip and then, if I saw the map after that, I was like I could have seen that waterfall. I paddled right by there. I didn't even know it was there, I'd be, so I'd feel so cheated. So I so appreciate that I won't feel cheated now.

Speaker 3: 22:27

Oh, it's funny because I've done the same thing, right, because, again, I'd mentioned on these new maps the Chlorine and French River. It was a bunch of additional points of interest. There's both more types, but there's more quantity too, right? And so I've gone through that exact same thing. It's like you've been to a place and then, after you read online or look at some old map or whatever, you're like, oh, turns out, right around the corner was a waterfall, historic ruins, whatever, right. But in a sense then you have an excuse to go back, right, as if you needed one.

Speaker 1: 23:00

Yeah, Tim doesn't need any more excuses.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Well, but I now have an excuse to buy more maps. Thanks, Jeff.

Speaker 3: 23:09

But you know it's also it's kind of fun because you know I'm in the same boat as you, right, like you know, you might look at the map and say, oh, there's this new thing. Well, in some fashion, I I find some new thing, right, not looking at my own map, but you know, again it could just be somebody talking about it online or emailing it in or whatever, and so it is kind of neat. You're going back to this place you've been before and you look around this other corner and like ta-da, you know there's a, there's an interesting point.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Do Do you get you said email it in? Do people reach out and say, hey, I found this cool thing and I thought I'd let you know, or I had this thought about something that I didn't see on your map or something that I liked. Like, how does feedback work for you? Do you get a decent amount of it and is it engaging? Is it good stuff?

Speaker 3: 23:59

Yeah, oh, excellent question. Yeah, no, I mean it is extremely useful, right, I certainly do get a good amount, and more is always better. So you know, person watching this. Feel free to email me, jeff, at massbyjeffcom. But yeah, I mean in terms of points of interest and other things too. The way I always pitch it in a sense is I've spent 700 and something days paddling, and so a lot of people will ask me about Algonquin how much of Algonquin have I done? And I've done maybe 70%. And again, that pretty much extends to the other parks too, like Wharf Highlands and Mass Saga and French River and Chlorny. It's similar Less days in those places, but similar sort of you know amount of exploring.

Speaker 3: 24:50

But even then, you know, there's places that I haven't been in 10 years, and so having people write it and say, hey, this changed is extremely useful. Actually, one, for example, on the new colony map is there's a lake there, pike Lake, which essentially it was like a big pond, and there's a sort of long stretch of narrow lake coming off of it. Well, that's how it used to be it was, I think, 2023, there was like a massive beaver dam holding up the lake. That blew, and, and so now the eastern two-thirds of the lake, the sort of narrow bit, is now a creek that's a few inches deep. So I've been to Pike Lake, I've been back since then, and that's a pretty big thing. So it went from being a nice, easy, pedalable lake to a mud puddle, certainly on that side. So that sort of info is great.

Speaker 3: 25:43

And even, you know, again, like we were talking about earlier, to sort of make the connection, uh, you know the portages and uh, uh, you're talking about uh, sort of trail condition, right, well, that's an example of something that, uh, I honestly hadn't thought of someone else brought up. I use the pedophile example. That was their example and uh, it's like, well, that's a good point, right, um, and they can even just be things where the stuff that is super clear to me. I mean, that's the thing. I make the map, so I know what I'm saying, right.

Speaker 3: 26:16

And then you know, people will write in and say I don't get it and that's that's great when people say that, because, even if they're not explicitly saying that's confusing, that's great when people say that, because, even if they're not explicitly saying that's confusing, that's what they're saying right. Again, like I talked about the idea, I'm trying to put my ideas and the symbols and colors and whatever put on the map and they're trying to decode it. Well, if they don't get it, that's a sign. So, yeah, I mean, there's nothing that could be more useful than people writing in, and the map certainly would not be what it is without that cool.

Speaker 2: 26:45

I, I will. I will add to it in a in a positive sense. The one of the one of the things I like most about your maps is is that snapshot, like you can look at it and and through osmosis, like just taking a ton of information, right out of the gate right, um, which makes so.

Speaker 2: 27:06

So our eldest is my, my uh paddling partner for the most part, and if I spend a lot of time looking at a map when we're in the canoe, he gets unhappy because he's the only one that's paddling. I'm looking at a map so if I can go click, okay, got it, we're. We're up and around the bend here for this. There's where the portage is, whatever, because it's all laid out for me.

Speaker 3: 27:29

He likes it better when we're traveling with your maps, just saying no, I mean and I think that's very practical, because that situation I've been on the other side of that when I was the one paddling and dad's getting the map You're like I want to go, but you know, you know, I just imagine. You know it's pouring rain out, you know it's windy. You're like bouncing up and down the boat, you're like I want to get to the campsite and so again like to your point. The worst thing is you're trying to like look at this and decode, like where are we? What's going on? So it, you know, it's so key to look at the map, figure it.

Speaker 2: 28:07

We want to figure out and go, you know yeah, agreed, agreed, and and my, my kryptonite is scale I simply, I, my brain just won't. I'm looking at a map and I go well, it's got to be right there. It's not, it's 20 miles in that direction, or whatever, or this bay.

Speaker 1: 28:29

This bay looks like it's that size, but it's actually it's not. This is not the right bay. This is the next bay over that we want, so yeah I'm looking forward to seeing seeing larger.

Speaker 2: 28:40

If you're, if you know, if you 50 percent, yeah, that's. That's going to make my life way better, which will make the big kids life way better as well yeah, no, I mean, I love the zoom right and uh, you know it's always.

Speaker 3: 28:54

Honestly, it's just about uh, I wish I could go even more, but it's something like calarney and I I don't want to have more than one mat for calarney. Uh, french river, certainly I don't want to have more than the two I already have, but that's where the little tricks like the double sliding, whatever really helped that.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Yeah, I like that idea.

Speaker 1: 29:12

And did you choose these particular locations? Because they're your favorites, because they're the most popular, they're the most in demand. How did you choose which ones to map?

Speaker 3: 29:21

That's a really good question. It's a mix of both and it's funny because, like the irony in a sense is, I love going places people don't want to go, but of course those don't make for popular maps. But it works out because you know, if you take a place like Algonquin or honestly even Killarney, there's going to be places that are busier and there's going to be places that are less busy. Certainly, I think there's more less busy places in Ogonkwa just because it's a bigger place. So if you want to put the time and effort to sort of get to the middle or other little corners, you can certainly get away from people. But it applies to Killarney too. And again to connect back to what we were talking about earlier, you know about root difficulties and stuff. There's always going to be some of those, you know, sketchy, bushwhacky things or just harder roots. So, to answer your question, there certainly is an element of places I want to go, places I want to check out, but it certainly is there. You know I I'm picking places that, uh, I know.

Speaker 2: 30:28

ultimately, I can tell them that yeah, well, yeah, business plan has to play into it. Uh, I'm very glad you've done the ones that you have done because they're they're definitely my favorite parks, like I love clarity, algonquin. We do kawartha islands literally every fall. Uh, we've done the massasauga now, so that was a another good one. We've done the french. I see, I see tomogami in my future. I've. Actually, when I discovered that you had a digital one, I started looking at routes yeah, yeah it was totally accidental.

Speaker 2: 31:01

I didn't mean to go looking. I saw it and then, two hours later, it's like I already have a whole bunch of trips planned this year but there's next year, so never too early start planning.

Speaker 3: 31:12

It's not exactly, and that's where you know one of the fun things.

Speaker 3: 31:16

Oh sorry no, no, no, no, go ahead I'd say one of the fun things about, uh, doing each of the maps is it certainly there's a lot of similarity, right, like you know, you're paddling, you're camping at campsites, there's portages, but there certainly are little differences too, and so it's really interesting going to a new place and sort of trying to understand it. In a sense it's little intricacies and whatever, and so, like talking about tobogganing, I remember there's sort of new things that I've never experienced, nothing huge in a sense, but little things. Like it's among me, some of the portages are cut more narrower. That can be more challenging when you're carrying the canoe. There's certainly spots you're walking and suddenly the canoe is stuck. And then you know, from a mapping point of view, one of the little interesting challenges was the tomogony. It's sort of this network of small little parks and crown land right and conservation reserves and that sort of thing. So there's maybe I'm just guessing off the top of my head you know, let's say there's 12 little parks and different parks have different rules. You know some of them you have to have like a permit for camping. Uh, some of them you don't, some of them you might bump into motorboats, some of them you might not, and so, you know, for something like algonquin, uh, I didn't quite have to worry about that because there's one big park and the rules are the same, and you know, easy peasy.

Speaker 3: 32:40

But for tomogami, I essentially had to come up with a way of how do I communicate this information.

Speaker 3: 32:45

You know the person using the map needs this and so, uh, it's interesting, you know, from a you know challenge of how do you present this perspective. But I also find that, um, then you, you end up learning. When you learn these things, you take that information and you bring it back to the other maps and then it improves them too. Right, because in a sense it's a sort of thing that you, you could get away with doing a job on, because it didn't matter quite as much. But certainly when you do a better job of communicating these things well, it's easier to read, easier to understand and, uh, you know, a lot of times again, it's just something I didn't think about. For algonquin, um, you know, sort of the different rules and parks, because there are certainly other little parks around the periphery of algonquin. I show, um, but it's just again, it's easy to sort of hand wave that away when it's not the focus of the map and, uh uh, something like tomogami has forced me to uh uh uh, do a better job.

Speaker 2: 33:46

So yeah, yeah, Good point it's. It's funny you mentioned the. You know you, you run into two motorboats and stuff. It took me, it took me ages Feel. It feels like it took me years and years to figure out that pretty much every access point you're going to run into motorboats If you have to do a portage in or two portages in before you go. Okay, now I'm away from those guys, like I didn't. I didn't realize that literally all the parks have cottages and stuff around the periphery of the park itself.

Speaker 3: 34:17

I have no idea yeah, yeah, and even on crown land too you face this sort of stuff and it's it's uh. It took me even longer to understand because at least in a park it's kind of spelled out motorboats here, no, motorboats here, uh, with crown land it's like well, they're allowed everywhere. But you realize over time it's kind of it's something you're kind of getting at, which is they physically can't get everywhere. So, for example, maybe there's a lake and then there's a river. If you have a waterfall in between, they're not going upstream Right yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:55

Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1: 34:56

Yeah. How to escape motorboats yes.

Speaker 2: 34:59

There's a book, there's Kevin's next book.

Speaker 3: 35:03

There you go, it just writes itself.

Speaker 2: 35:06

Being the wonderful storyteller that you are, you regaled us with a 31-day trip. You were young, you were like end of high school sort of deal. It was awesome. Tell us another trip just because we like stories. That's a thing for us.

Speaker 3: 35:27

Oh, I guess I'll tell you about last spring's trip. Okay, cool, yeah, so it was me and two other guys and again, you know I was talking about those root difficulty colors before right, the yellow, orange and red, and then kind of the pencil stuff. So we were off in the pencil land of you know extreme adventure and so, uh, what we've done last spring, this is algonquin, the very bottom part of the park, okay, and so if you look at a map, my map, um, you'll see that there's these long, uh, two kilometer ish, portages, little pond, uh long, uh long, two kilometer portage, little pond, and they're all. All the portages are in red Cause. It kind of, you know, pretty rough, uh, but it's, it's just one way trip. And uh, I was looking at the map, right Obviously, and uh, one of the features I added to the Ivankan map is the creeks on the map. The width of the creek on the map correlates the width of the creek in real life. So if it's bigger in real life, bigger on the map, right, and so that got sort of the wheels turning and so we came up with this idea of doing a loop.

Speaker 3: 36:41

So we'd start by going through that long series of stuff in the park. But rather than going back up, the same thing we would, what do we do? So we got to this lake called Scorch Lake, camped there, and from there there was a road, sort of a minor road that you go two kilometers. You meet up with this more major road, walk another two kilometers, you get to this lake called Lost Water Lake and from there again, this is where I'd seen this wide creek. That was sort of the inspiration. So we put in at Lost Water Lake, paddle, paddle, paddle for a few kilometers. And I mean, the one thing is you know the width, you never know the depth, right? So you're always doing this fingers crossed thing. But we were super lucky. The first again like four-ish kilometers or whatever was wide and deep. It was exactly what you're hoping for. So that was very, very cool. As you're paddling along, you're wondering when's the last time someone was here, right, that's a good thing. And we got to a spot where I knew there was going to be some rapids. There's another road nearby, so it was okay, we'll connect up to this road, which we did, and our plan from there.

Speaker 3: 38:07

This is where things didn't quite go as planned, right, the adventure struck. So at this point we were going to this new road that we'd hit. It kind of paralleled the creek for the next, let's say, two kilometers, and we'd seen on sort of satellite imagery that it looked very bushy in there, right Like alder and that sort of thing where you know you're fighting through the bushes. So we're like, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to walk two kilometers along this road. That should get us around the worst of it, We'll put in, we'll paddle from there and so we get ready to portage road that should get us around, the worst of it, we'll put in, we'll puddle from there and so, um, we get ready to portage, we eat some snacks or whatever, and like 50 meters later the bridge is out and this is spring, so you know you got water just pouring down, pouring down. So challenge number one was we had to sort of push back around and find a spot where you cross. Did that? Then you walk the two kilometers and you're just walking at the road, so it's not too bad. Push right down to the creek and of course we did not miss all the alder. Two kilometers of alder ahead of us, turns out. So we skipped two. We had two more. So we're paddling and pushing through us I mentioned it was me and two other guys.

Speaker 3: 39:24

So me and one other guy were in a tandem canoe. The other guy was in a solo and he had like a double-bladed paddle so he couldn't even lift the paddle. Every time he tried to lift it he would get caught up and he's saying what are we doing here, right? So eventually we said, screw this, it was bushwhacked for another kilometer or so and got around it. And that was that. The funny thing was that when we that spot where I mentioned the bridge was out, if we'd just gone the other way on the road, about two kilometers, we would have been to the exact same spot where we'd, you know, bushwhacked and fought through and everything, and so it was just kind of funny. But hey, we made it, we're alive, that's good. And uh, we made a loop where there was no loop. So you know, I I would totally do that again, just going the other way the mertree loop.

Speaker 2: 40:20

Yeah, exactly, exactly so you know fun yeah, well, sure, type Type two fun. It's funny when people get into. Every time I hear bushwhack alder comes up as well. It's always you know. It's like, oh, and you know, scratch that crap out of me. And oh, man, it took me days to get through there. Oh, part of kevin callan's presentation uh, I can't remember which one, maybe maybe the toronto outdoor adventure show. He was talking about a trip that he and andy did way, way, way north and it took them something like some ridiculous, like six days to go four kilometers, which is yeah, that's insane.

Speaker 2: 41:08

Man like and and alder was a word he kept kept using, so yeah, that's where it's always funny.

Speaker 3: 41:16

You'll see the odd person on facebook or whatever saying hey, can I like skip that two kilometer portage and take the creek? I guess they're imagining, you know they don't like portaging, so let's just not do that. And yeah, the portage exists for a reason it is so much easier it is so much easier yeah, why?

Speaker 2: 41:35

why would somebody unload everything you know and love it for two kilometers if they didn't have to.

Speaker 3: 41:41

So just saying yeah, I mean, that's a random tangent, but um, I remember the first time I was doing crown land, you know uh, canoeing stuff it was like where's the portage going to be? That's exactly what you're saying. People hate portages, so it is literally the last place it could possibly be yep um chris prose.

Speaker 2: 42:02

Uh said if you, if you don't know where the portage is, look around, look for the lowest point.

Speaker 3: 42:08

That's probably where the portage is gonna be yeah, exactly, and I've done that more than once and, you know, ended up within you know, 100 meters, or whatever, of wherever it is.

Speaker 2: 42:18

That's there's a good one and that's the thing.

Speaker 3: 42:21

The one thing that unites paddlers, or one of the things that unites paddlers, is our collective hate of portages yeah, hate.

Speaker 2: 42:30

Hate's not too strong a word there um otherwise we'd be backpackers. So yeah, I'd be a hiker, but I I hate hiking. So I don't hate hiking, I just rather I'd rather be exactly who carries the stuff, not me exactly, exactly sure sorry, I will edit around all this stuff, don't worry about it no problem, yeah so, yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:55

so certainly, in the past I haven't really done a lot of updates to digital versions. There's certainly something I want to do more going forward, uh, but right now my workflow isn't really set up for it, right. Right, it really is designed for you build up this big map over many months, and then it actually takes like a couple days to get digital sort of stuff set up, and so that's why it's like, oh, it would be great to make this one little fix or change or whatever. But then there's always other projects, and so it's like, yeah, I'll get to that at some point, and it doesn't happen.

Speaker 3: 43:31

So many hours in the day projects, and so it's like, yeah, I'll get to that at some point and it doesn't happen, uh, but going forward exactly, no, exactly right, because you know people say, well, what about new maps? And you're like, yeah, I should do that. Like you gotta do updates to other maps and there's always new stuff to be done, right, um, but, uh, you know, this is this is something I really want to be able to do more, and so one of my next next projects, sort of after the homochomy, is I want to work on changing, then, how I build the maps to make a lot easier, to make more frequent updates, at least to the digital version. So, um, yeah, it's kind of exciting to be able to do that, but that's, that's in the cards so with the printed maps, people get a digital copy of the map as well, right?

Speaker 3: 44:12

yeah, exactly, multiple versions of that, digital as well, right yeah, no, exactly right, because so I figure, once somebody buys the map, right, really, it's all the time and effort whatever that I've put into it. That's what you're paying for. And then I want you to be able to use it in as many ways as possible. I've included as many formats as I can possibly think of. Right now there's five. There is a JPEG which is sort of for computer. You can blow it up. You can even print blowups. It's super high quality, for that exact reason, so you can do a blowup of your trip.

Speaker 3: 44:47

There's an Avenza Maps version for iPhone and Android. That's fun and it has a GPS sort of capabilities. So you know you're the blue dot in the map and, uh, that can be handy again for the age old, like, is this the bay or is that bay, right? Um, there's a Garmin GPS version. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Uh, there's the Garmin GPS version same sort of deal. Um, there's the garmin gps version same sort of deal.

Speaker 3: 45:14

Um, there's a google earth version and that's super cool because it's you get this like 3d view on the world. Um, so again, especially for the, the bushwhacky explory stuff, I've I've used that before sort of plot out where we're gonna go, because, again, you're talking about hills and and valleys, and you know, uh, I guess we're talking about that in the context of existing portages, but even bushraking, it's some of the same logic, right? So, yeah, using the 3D Google Earth is super handy for that. And finally, there's a more technical file called GeoTIFF, but essentially that allows somebody who has some very specific need. You can take this GeoTIFF and you can load it into essentially any mapping program. So, even if it's something that I haven't thought of or doesn't even exist yet, that file, if you're technically minded, you can use for anything.

Speaker 2: 46:05

Cool. Where can people get all these maps from?

Speaker 3: 46:08

Oh yes, great question. Where can people get all these maps from? Oh yes, great question. So the easiest way probably is to go to my website, which is mapsbyjeffcom. Oh, I got mapsbyjeff, so stab the com. But they're also available at most outdoor stores and outfitters, right? So in Killarney you got, like Killarney Outfitters and the Wichitaodge, you know, probably probably an outdoor store near you.

Speaker 1: 46:34

Very cool. That's it for us for today. Thank you so much to Jeff McMurtry from Maps by Jeff for joining us today and for joining us the second time. So please do listen to his first episode and then you can listen to the second episode, or listen to him the other way around. You can do whatever order you want.

Speaker 2: 46:51

And go out and buy his new maps and then new maps again in July. You can spend money all year.

Speaker 1: 46:56

Get the maps. Tim will attest that you can spend money all year.

Speaker 3: 47:03

Indeed.

Speaker 1: 47:06

And please do listen to us again sometime soon. You can reach out to us anytime you want to. We're at hi at supergoodcampaigncom. That's hi at supergoodcamp, and please do listen to us again sometime soon. You can reach out to us anytime you want to. We're at hi at supergoodcampingcom. That's hi at supergoodcampingcom, and we're on all the social media. Please do check us out there and we'll talk to you again soon. Bye, bye, bye.