WCPP, Nopiming, Manigotagan, and Atikaki Route Finder Progress

I completed the Route Finder for the backcountry canoe routes for Nopiming Provincial Park and Manigotagan River Provincial Park. You can now calculate time and distance estimates for the routes in these parks.

I have also continued working on the northern Woodland Caribou Provincial Park routes. You can see my progress in the image below. Along with this, I have connected Wallace Lake in Atikaki Provincial Park to the Obukowin Lake and Wanipigow River entry points in Woodland Caribou. Wallace Lake is the usual starting point for these two entry points.

It shouldn't be too much longer until I have Woodland Caribou completely finished and I start working on Atikaki and Whiteshell.

Paddle Planner.com Video

Tired of the map and string method of measuring paddling distances? Try PaddlePlanner.com!


This is our first try at a video promoting the website. I think it turned out pretty well considering our very limited resources.

Woodland Caribou Route Finder Progress

I'm making good progress on the Route Finder for Woodland Caribou. The entire southern portion is completed. Since this is the most traveled section of the park, the Route Finder should be usable for most people. The green in the image below is the portion that is completed and usable.

New Maps and Tools

As we transition from paddling season to planning season, I thought I would give an update on the website and announce a few new maps and tools.

Added Manitoba-Ontario Interprovincial Wilderness Area

That's a long name, but it also is a big area. The wilderness area includes Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in Ontario and Atikaki and Nopiming Provincial Parks in Manitoba. Though not part of the wilderness area, I have also included the adjoining provincial parks - South Atikaki, Wallace Lake, Manigotagan River, and Whiteshell. These parks combined encompass over 3 million acres, about 3 times the size of the Boundary Waters, and include some of the most pristine paddling in the world. 

I am about halfway through adding the Route Finder to Woodland Caribou (I haven't started the other areas). The green area below is what I have completed so far (the yellow dots are portages). The Route Finder will work in the green area but will give an error if you try to route anywhere else. I periodically update my progress on the blog. 

You can access the new maps from the interactive maps page.

Maximum Distance/Time Tool Added to Route Finder

I'm not really sure what to call this, so I'll just have to explain it. The Route Finder was originally designed to give a time and distance estimate when you have a starting point and a destination. What if you don't have a destination, only a starting point? Where can you go in, for example, 4 hours? Most of my short weekend trips I start at an entry point and go for 3-5 hours. I don't have a set destination in mind. When trying to plan this in the past, I have had to do several calculations to figure out how far I can go. With the new tool, I can now specify a starting location and the time/distance I want to go, and the possible locations will be highlighted on the map. This tool will also come in handy when trying to plan day trips from a campsite.

The calculation takes more resources and more time than a regular Route Finder calculation, so I had to place limits on the tool's time and distance. Free accounts can plot up to 4 hours or 12 miles. Paid accounts can plot up to 8 hours or 24 miles. When using the tool, you need to be patient as the calculation can take a long time, especially if it is trying to plot over 4 hours. Though it should be rare, if the calculation takes over 5 minutes, it will give an error and stop.

Future Plans

My goal is to complete the following before planning season gets into full swing next January. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do all of it, but I'll certainly give it a try.

• Add Algonquin Provincial Park - I have everything I need except for campsite locations. Getting permission to use any existing campsite data might be a little tricky, though.
• Ability to export map images - I have almost finished making a tool to export a map to an image. You can always do it right now with screenshots, but this will make it easier.
• Revamp Photo Upload Process - The photo upload and edit process currently can be a little confusing. I am going to revamp it and add some more tools, such as a way to bulk upload or edit photos.
• Trip Planning Application - My vision is to have the ability to completely plan a trip on the website - permits, outfitters, gear and food lists, maps and routes, communications with other group members  - and keep all of the information in one spot with the ability to print a trip plan or store it as a PDF. It will be a big project, but I'm hopeful on getting it done before next planning season.

As always, I am open to suggestions and ideas. If there is something you would like to see on the website, just send me an email.

Woodland Caribou Route Finder Progress

I have started working on the Route Finder for Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. Since it is as big as the Quetico, it will probably take quite a while to finish. In the image below, the green is what I have completed so far. The Route Finder will work for that area but will give an error if you try to route anywhere else.

Woodland Caribou Provincial Park

I added an interactive map for Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. It is still a work in progress. I still need to add the entry points. The RouteFinder may take a while to finish since it is such a big area. I need to clean up/add some of the lake data. I am also looking for a more comprehensive source for the campsites (there are supposedly over 2,200 campsites, but I only have data for about 800). Despite this, I thought it was good enough for now. It still has valuable information on it that will hopefully help the few intrepid paddlers who go to this park.

I have to give a big thanks to Joe_Schmeaux, who provided the campsite data and helped me a lot with finding everything else for the map. He also has helped me with the data for the adjacent Atikaki and Nopiming provincial parks in Manitoba. I'll get those parks added, too, as soon as I can.

Name Changed to Paddle Planner

Finally! MN Canoeing has changed its name to Paddle Planner. Any links or embedded maps that currently point to mncanoeing.com will automatically be redirected to paddleplanner.com. The name was changed to reflect the expansion of the site beyond Minnesota. Along with the name change, I made many other improvements and additions. Listed below are just a few of them.

Added Sylvania Wilderness

Sylvania Wilderness in Michigan has been added to the interactive map and route finder and the databases. This is the first of many additions. I plan on adding Algonquin and Woodland Caribou provincial parks, the Apostle Islands, and the St. Croix and Namekagon rivers in the near future. If there are any other areas you would like to see, let me know and I will try to get them added.

With the new area, I have also slightly altered how you get to the interactive maps on the website. There are now maps for the BWCA, the Quetico, Sylvania, and the BWCA/Quetico combined.

New Background Maps

For those familiar with maps in the former Paddlers' Campsite Database (PCD) for the Quetico, I added a background with that map. It is a satellite view that Dr. J. Archer Harris put together from some aerial images of the Quetico. It is somewhat a "false color" image, but at least it is green and blue! Also, the best part - there are no clouds! This is a vast improvement over any other satellite images I've seen of the Quetico. I made this the default view for the Quetico-Only map.

I also added some background maps from the National Map. You can look at these by changing the background map in the upper right corner of the interactive maps.

Performance Improvements and Fixes

I made various performance improvements and fixed a few bugs throughout the site. Some of the biggest improvements were in the databases (campsites, portages, lakes, etc.). They should now load and sort much faster than previously.

To switch the website to accommodate multiple paddling areas, I had to make some big changes. With big changes inevitably come bugs. If you run into any problems on the site, please let me know.