Virtually every canoe route map you will find out there will have some sort of contour line/ height indication on them. This one does not. There are many reasons for this. The size of the map, that is the area covered by this map – approximately 1 million hectares is a ton of land and the detail required for those contour lines relating to a wall map didn’t make it reasonable and legible for anyone but the eagle eyed! I am not eagle eyed.
While those lines could be seen (if they were there) from the downloaded map in some form of zoom – really the height differential between adjacent lakes is never that extreme. Lake heights are frequent throughout the map giving one a great indication of the (general) difficulty of any one portage. Other factors obviously affect difficulty. In general, from East to West height of land decreases with the river flow. Rivers generally flow north or west in the boreal forest in Northern Ontario. Feel free to glance over the map and notice the general drop in lake heights in that direction.
Also noted when the contours were there, the file size of the map was insane! difficult to work with on my computer – and frankly it didn’t take on the ‘vintage’ look I was looking for. I am looking into adding animation of rocky regions (cliffs, ridges, heights of land etc.) to the map in the future. perhaps next year.
Also in the future, tougher portages, large height variants and blowdowns along some portages will be added as needed. In the mean time, enjoy the walk!