Over the past few years, I’ve written articles about both canoe navigation and kayak navigation. I based the articles on the navigation classes I teach with the premise that navigation shouldn’t be confusing, and it isn’t confusing once you understand the basics. To help people learn during my classes, I concentrate on the results instead [...]
This is a guest post from educator and wilderness guide Dave Freeman. Canadian topographic maps generally cost between $11 and $16 dollars each. When buying many maps for an extended camping trip, the costs quickly add up. Luckily, the Canadian government offers free electronic copies of all of their topo maps. By following a few [...]
When lost or slightly misplaced while kayaking or canoeing, if you have a view of a couple of landmarks you can get a fix, which is the navigational term for finding an “X” that marks the spot. The “X” is your location. The process is a quick and easy way to find your location. For [...]
When paddling, you use a compass to determine or identify courses, bearings and headings. Because the deck of a kayak or the workstation in a canoe is small, limiting the number of instruments used for navigation speeds up the process and reduces the chance of losing an item overboard. A baseplate compass combines a protractor [...]
A compass needle seldom points directly to the north pole, because Earth’s magnetic fields pull the compass needle towards what is known as magnetic north. Because the angle between true north, the direction from you towards the north pole, and magnetic north varies from place to place, we must account for that variation when navigating. [...]
The terms, course, bearing and heading, seem to cause confusion among students just learning to navigate. Although, it’s possible to navigate without knowing the meaning of each term, having a common language allows us to discuss navigation more effectively. While I’m sure that you could come up with a rhyme to help you learn these [...]
This is part two in a two-part article about learning the basics of reading a marine chart. Part one, Navigation: Read a Marine Chart Part 1, covered reading the basics discovered at first glance, like the chart’s scale, name and variation. This part is about the specific symbols on a chart, like water depths, lights, [...]
Learning how to read a marine chart is an important part of learning to navigate. A chart, like a map, represents the real world projected onto paper. It helps you figure out where you’ve been, where you’re going, where you’re at and what to expect at each point along the way. There are lots of [...]
NOAA makes its marine charts available for free to the public, but those charts come in a BSB format. If you want to manipulate the marine charts on your computer, unless you hack the file, you have to use a computer program designed to read the BSB format. To make the charts usable in any [...]
When paddling, if you line up two features — artificial or natural — you have the makings of a range. A range is a type of line of position that can help you stay on course or help you find your position on the map (think of a line of position as an imaginary line [...]
When you’re paddling to a destination located somewhere along a nondescript shoreline, it’s easy to miss your target even if you took an exact bearing. There are lots of reasons why this might happen, some of those reasons include wind or current pushing you off course, lack of attention, slight inaccuracy in your compass reading [...]
Magnetic forces contained within your kayak can cause your compass to read an incorrect bearing. This type of error is known as magnetic deviation. With 1 degree of compass error, over a mile, you’ll end up about 92 feet away from your destination. If your deviation is extreme like shown in the image, you could [...]
You should learn not only to use a compass, but also good map reading before you venture into the wilds of the northern woods or the wilds of the woods anywhere.
Free Boundary Waters Canoe Area GPS Data: Campsites and Portages
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a million acre wilderness area in northern Minnesota established to protect pristine boreal forests and historic and recreational canoe routes. It has over 1,000 lakes and 2,000 campsites. If you use a GPS unit, finding GPS data for BWCA campsites and portages was difficult. Now, you can get [...]