Maps

by Melanie Collins

If any of you are like me, you love to look at maps. I love seeing where I've been and looking for places I'd still love to see. This is especially true with the Boundary Waters/Quetico. I've spent many hours staring at the overview maps in our outfitting area and looking for new lakes to visit and new route possibilities to explore. Now I've taken it one step further with one of the coolest free programs on the internet-Google Earth. Google Earth is a free downloadable software that provides satellite images of...well, Earth. To get the program, simply go to http://earth.google.com. You will need to download the program, and then you can pretty much just start playing. Densely populated areas have a much better resolution than small towns like Ely, but there is still an amazing amount of details available of the lakes in the Boundary Waters. One of my favorite tools to play with on the program is the "Path Tool." First I marked Wiliams and Hall Outfitters using the pushpin icon (you can find it by following this link: http://bbs.keyhold.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/390560/an/0/page/0#390560). You may have to zoom out a little bit to get a better idea of the surroundings. Then under the Tools menu, I selected "measure". You now have the option to measure a line or a path. I like to use the path option. You can use the crossbars to draw in any path that you would like and Google Earth will tell you how many miles you've traveled. It is especailly fun to figure out how far you have canoed and portaged on previous trips, as well as a great way to start planning future trips. I'm still a novice at this, but I've had a lot of fun playing around and learning new things. As you get more advanced you will be able to save your own locations - like favorite campsites and fishing spots which can be entered in a GPS system and revisited and add pictures for other users to see exactly what you saw! Last summer I went out for an overnighter with some of my "city friends", and was so excited when a few days after returning my friend Ben sent me a Google Map picture of the lakes we canoed in, documenting our path and the island we stayed on! If you need a little Boundary Waters fix, this is a great way to get it!