On our first canoe trip in Algonquin, around thirty years ago, the navigation kit consisted of a paper map and a compass. To know your position, you had to observe the shoreline, consult the map and discuss it.
This summer, the phone in almost every paddler's dry bag can display a blue dot on a satellite image, accurate to a few metres, with no cell signal at all.
We nevertheless recommend always carrying a map and a compass, and we explain why here.
How do you navigate with a map and compass?
It is worth explaining what map and compass navigation involves, since many people under forty have never had to practise it.
The starting point is a topographic map. In Canada, this is often a federal 1:50,000 sheet, or a canoe route map for a specific park. Contour lines show the terrain, blue indicates water, and small symbols mark portages and campsites. The rest is interpretation.
On a lake, you must constantly compare the landscape with the map. Is the point on the left this one or the next? Is this seemingly endless bay a bay, or the channel you are looking for? You take a bearing on an easily recognizable island or on a notch in the hills. You count headlands. You keep an estimate of time and speed to know approximately how far you have travelled.
Errors are inevitable, even for experienced paddlers. Half the skill lies in noticing early that something does not match, and stopping before paddling an hour in the wrong direction. The other half lies in acknowledging it to the person in the bow.
What is declination, and why does it matter?
A compass points to magnetic north, while the map is drawn to true north. The difference between the two is declination. In eastern Canada, it is large enough to send you well off course over a few kilometres if it is not taken into account.
Declination also shifts slowly over the years, because the magnetic pole moves. The value shown on an old map may therefore be out of date. This detail is easy to forget, but it genuinely matters.
How has GPS transformed navigation?
Civilian GPS has existed for a long time, but it only became truly accurate in 2000, when the US government switched off the deliberate degradation built into the public signal. Handheld units then became common among hikers and paddlers.
Smartphones subsequently absorbed all of these functions. An ordinary phone now has a GPS chip accurate enough for backcountry use. One fact remains little known: a phone's GPS works without any cell signal. The map simply needs to be downloaded before departure. Hiking and paddling apps let you save topographic maps and satellite imagery for offline use, record your track and mark campsites and portage landings.
On a canoe trip, this is a considerable benefit. It takes five seconds to determine which point is which. You can see exactly where a portage begins, rather than slowly following the shore looking for a small yellow sign. In fog or at dusk, this tool can prevent a very hazardous crossing.
We use these tools without reservation.
Why does the paper map still belong next to the GPS?
Because any electronic device in the backcountry can stop working after a single incident:
- Batteries drain, and faster in the cold. A September morning on a northern lake is cold.
- Phones get wet, dry bags fail and canoes tip.
- Screens crack when dropped on granite, as anyone who has done a few portages knows.
- Apps crash, launch an update or lose the offline map you believed you had downloaded.
Paper has its own weaknesses: it tears, gets soaked or blows into the lake. However, a map in a waterproof case and a basic compass have no battery, no software and no settings. They work as long as you do not lose them.
A further, less practical reason applies. Navigating by map lets you understand where you are: the shape of the lake, the direction of the wind, the position of the next campsite relative to a given bay. Following a blue dot only tells you where the dot is.
This is a different kind of knowledge. If the dot disappears, there is no fallback, unless you have been paying attention to the route throughout.
What role should technology play?
It should add safety, not replace skill. The GPS is not the problem. The problem is setting out with only the GPS and no idea how to proceed without it. The tool then becomes a crutch, and that crutch eventually gives way. Parks Canada's backcountry safety guidance expresses the same idea more simply: know your route, carry the appropriate gear and know how to use it.
The same pattern is regularly seen in business. A company sets up a chain of automated tools: the booking form feeds a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet triggers an email, and the email posts to Facebook. The system works perfectly for months. Then one of the tools changes its settings, and since no one knows how the system originally worked, no one can determine where the failure lies. A new generation of AI writing tools built on GPT-3 has also appeared this year, and the same scenario should be expected: they are useful and fast, but they represent a real risk if the user cannot recognize an incorrect result.
Our recommendation is the same in the woods and in the office: understand the basic work first, then use the tool to go faster and further. Good automation is built on a process that a person could still carry out by hand if needed.
A compass, for its part, never needs to be recharged.