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It’s important to note that while you need the Internet to download a map onto your mobile device you don’t need it after that, which is good because getting the Internet on Isle Royale is tough if not impossible. You would need to first download the app, if you don’t already have it, and then go to the landing page to download our maps.

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The Avenza Map Store is a mobile map app that allows you to download maps for offline use on iOS or Android smartphones or tablets. From the website, you can download a non-georeferenced Isle Royale map for 99 cents, the same price as all our other downloadable maps.įrom the Avenza Map Store, you can download the same map but for $2.99 because it features georeferencing.

They measure 8 by 11 inches when printed and the 42-mile Greenstone Ridge Trail across the island required six of them.Īctually, we produced two sets of maps. These are the most detailed maps ever produced of the park.

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We contracted another cartographer from City Lake Maps and Charts in Minneapolis to help us begin producing a series of georeferenced maps to the 160-mile trail system at Isle Royale National Park. The first time I field tested one of the maps and watched that blue dot move along the trail on my phone as I hiked, well let me tell you, it was like having a come-to-Jesus moment at a Baptist tent revival. Somehow, I survived and at MTM we began by producing georeferenced maps to simple trails in Oakland County. Next to me was a guy who worked for the Department of Defense. Sitting behind me in the class were two U.S.

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It first required investing substantially in the software – in our case MAPublisher from Avenza – to add georeferencing to our existing trail maps and to include it as a feature on our maps in the future.Īnd then a trip to Denver, home of such recreational mapping companies as National Geographic’s Trails Illustrated, to learn how to use MAPublisher. This year MTM has begun producing georeferenced trail maps that you can download onto your oversized smartphone even when standing at the trailhead. And it was for 10 years.īut high tech, paper-less maps has caught up with and old backpackers like me. Getting involved with a start-up developing highly detailed trail maps for Michigan seemed like a safe bet. Or your battery didn’t have enough juice to make it back to your car. Or get a signal from the Global Positioning System satellites. They still didn’t trust me as much as that nameless Australian voice on Google Maps.īackpackers double checking their location on a map at Isle Royale National Park.īut I always figured following trails, especially backpacking in remote areas, would be the last bastion of paper maps if for no other reason than you couldn’t connect to the Internet. I’ve been in a car with friends who wondered how to get to a restaurant and it didn’t matter that I told them (repeatedly sometimes) I knew the shortest route because I’ve been there a dozen times. Or the 20 or 30 county and city maps stuffed in my glovebox. It seems today that hardly anybody has a paper map in their car much less the 120-page, oversized DeLorme Michigan Atlas & Gazetteer that I have in the backseat. Most times she doesn’t even look at the map on her phone but merely follows the driving instructions that Siri, Alexa or whoever is telling her the quickest route possible.Īnd she’s not alone.

Or MapQuest or whatever mapping app you use. Who could blame her? My wife is first generation Google Maps. She struggled with orientating the maps, identifying landmarks on them, judging distance using the scale bar and, in general, just couldn’t tell me which way to turn despite staring at a detailed drawing of the streets. They were good maps, produced by the various tourist associations around the country, but I quickly learned that my wife lacked basic mapping skills. Because I was too cheap to pay an additional $15 a day for a GPS unit, she had to navigate using paper maps. We had rented a car for two weeks but because she was uncomfortable driving on the left side of the road, I had to man the steering wheel the entire trip.