Electronics for Americans vs Canadians

[martinbns]

I have looked on in awe of the quality of the mapping you guys have on your units in US waters. Today we went further south on LOTW than we have before down into the Big Narrows area and VOILA, I became an American.

I **** near ran aground looking at all the contour lines on the part of the lake that has updated charts.

[kzoofisher]

Far be it from me to tell Canadians how to run their own country but, this is 100% on Ottawa. I’d be more than happy to buy a chip even if it had 2-3 meter contours. I’ll can fill in the rest.

[martinbns]

Originally Posted by kzoofisher

Far be it from me to tell Canadians how to run their own country but, this is 100% on Ottawa. I’d be more than happy to buy a chip even if it had 2-3 meter contours. I’ll can fill in the rest.

Why is it on Ottawa?

My impression is the mapping companies have produced new maps for areas you guys will pay them to do. Canada isn't a big enough market for it. You guys demand contours, we accept the blue blobs.

Am I wrong?

[kzoofisher]

I had always heard that the lack of base maps on chips was because the Canadian government won’t release them. Any lakes that have a paper map can easily be put on chips at practically no cost. Lots of hi def maps in the US that aren’t nearly as popular as LOTW and other major Canadian waters. I believe the restrictions are less than they were, you can at least get accurate shorelines now. Might be because so many lakes are getting crowd sourced maps. Navionics added several hundred a few years ago, Garmin has a bunch too.

[martinbns]

Originally Posted by kzoofisher

I had always heard that the lack of base maps on chips was because the Canadian government won’t release them. Any lakes that have a paper map can easily be put on chips at practically no cost. Lots of hi def maps in the US that aren’t nearly as popular as LOTW and other major Canadian waters. I believe the restrictions are less than they were, you can at least get accurate shorelines now. Might be because so many lakes are getting crowd sourced maps. Navionics added several hundred a few years ago, Garmin has a bunch too.

Our GPS mapping looks just like our detailed Government lake maps, at least LOTW does. When I spoke to Humminbird about about smartstrike and why it only has detail south of Sunset Channel they didn't mention anything about the government, they just said they hadn't done the deatiled mapping.

[Kevin23]

I would say lakemaster can't get whatever permit is needed to map Canadian waters. Canada is a big market for fishing, hard to believe theres "not a market for it".

[martinbns]

Originally Posted by Kevin23

I would say lakemaster can't get whatever permit is needed to map Canadian waters. Canada is a big market for fishing, hard to believe theres "not a market for it".

I was in Canadian waters by probably 20 miles at least. The mapping companies have only done newer detailed mapping on LOTW on the Southern parts of the lake, Morson to Sioux Narrows, Whitefish Bay, across the very bottom of the main lake then down through Big Narrows to Traverse Bay.

Not a National thing.

[Waxy]

The problem is Ottawa, and Canada's federal government.

There's two issues.

The biggest issue is that since all waters in Canada are federally owned, the government demands a royalty fee on any maps produced and sold of Canadian waters. Think of it like how the TV networks
pay to broadcast NFL or MLB games, only they charge a percentage of all sales rather than a one time fee. The mapping companies won't agree to at, at least not to date, as they argue that the royalty fee makes it unprofitable, especially since they would have had to do all the work to survey to the lakes in the majority of cases.

Which leads to the second issue - the "mapping" quality of most water bodies, especially west of southern Ontario, is very poor to say the least. Many of the lakes, including most of the large popular walleye lakes were quite literally mapped using a line and a lead weight doing a couple cross sections of the lake on the ice in the 1940s and 50s, or for bigger lakes, every two miles north/south or 1 mile east/west according to the survey grid. The rest was filled in by hand with contours based on those data points and the shoreline structure. That's the level of detail you'll get from all the mapping companies up here with a few exceptions, especially on reservoirs. There are some man made reservoirs in southern Alberta that were mapped in excellent detail and have very good paper maps available from the government, but again, due to royalties, are largely unavailable in digital form. In my experience, for whatever reason, the Navionics maps are the best quality for Saskatchewan and Southern Alberta, I'm not sure on other areas or provinces.

The sonar companies, and Lowrance in particular, got around both issues by using crowd sourcing/self sourcing for the data collection and by simply processing your data, not selling you a map. It's why the basic Social Maps is free, but they can charge for any additional processing or features you want. The live mapping is also royalty free because you're creating it yourself from data you've collected, the companies aren't selling you a map.

Interesting stuff and quirks in the law. I really hope they get it sorted out one day and we can get the mapping companies up here doing surveys and providing the unreal map quality you guys in the USA enjoy.

Waxy

[martinbns]

Originally Posted by Waxy

The problem is Ottawa, and Canada's federal government.

There's two issues.

The biggest issue is that since all waters in Canada are federally owned, the government demands a royalty fee on any maps produced and sold of Canadian waters. Think of it like how the TV networks
pay to broadcast NFL or MLB games, only they charge a percentage of all sales rather than a one time fee. The mapping companies won't agree to at, at least not to date, as they argue that the royalty fee makes it unprofitable, especially since they would have had to do all the work to survey to the lakes in the majority of cases.

Which leads to the second issue - the "mapping" quality of most water bodies, especially west of southern Ontario, is very poor to say the least. Many of the lakes, including most of the large popular walleye lakes were quite literally mapped using a line and a lead weight doing a couple cross sections of the lake on the ice in the 1940s and 50s, or for bigger lakes, every two miles north/south or 1 mile east/west according to the survey grid. The rest was filled in by hand with contours based on those data points and the shoreline structure. That's the level of detail you'll get from all the mapping companies up here with a few exceptions, especially on reservoirs. There are some man made reservoirs in southern Alberta that were mapped in excellent detail and have very good paper maps available from the government, but again, due to royalties, are largely unavailable in digital form. In my experience, for whatever reason, the Navionics maps are the best quality for Saskatchewan and Southern Alberta, I'm not sure on other areas or provinces.

The sonar companies, and Lowrance in particular, got around both issues by using crowd sourcing/self sourcing for the data collection and by simply processing your data, not selling you a map. It's why the basic Social Maps is free, but they can charge for any additional processing or features you want. The live mapping is also royalty free because you're creating it yourself from data you've collected, the companies aren't selling you a map.

Interesting stuff and quirks in the law. I really hope they get it sorted out one day and we can get the mapping companies up here doing surveys and providing the unreal map quality you guys in the USA enjoy.

Waxy

That's really interesting, I never really got a reason why the difference. LOTW is really different because both Lakemaster and Navionics have done the Southern part of the lake but not the Nothern portion or Shoal.

[Andre (wallyandre)]

@Waxy: right on