Maps and More

Maps: Safety Tools

In numerous places along the Bruce Peninsula the trail is in relatively remote spots and not too close to roads. Hiking alone is strongly discouraged and not a wise thing to do. PBTC volunteer hike leaders plan and publish numerous group hikes each year. Part of being safe includes having maps of the area and the trail(s) with you.

Conventional Road Atlases

When hiking the Peninsula section of the Bruce Trail an up-to-date road map is important to have in your vehicle and sometimes in your day pack during your hike. This is especially true if you are not a resident of the area and you are not familiar with the various road names. Here are links to some companies that publish Ontario road atlases and copies are often for sale in local stores. Map Art Publishing and Rand McNally

In-Car GPS Receivers and Remote Meeting Places for Hikes

A growing number of citizens purchase GPS units for use in their car. Although not perfect such GPS units can be exceptionally useful tools. If you use such a device frequently, it is best to keep the electronic maps in them updated.

A number of websites are providing latitudes and longitudes (e.g. Inglis Falls Conservation Area website) and a few hike leaders are beginning to provide a "lat/long" for meeting places in remote spots where the trail crosses a back country road (no regular street address). For example, the coordinates for parking at Crane Lake Gate are approximately 45.190236, -81.420550 (the negative sign means "West"). If you copy only those numbers off this page, including the comma and negative sign, and paste them into the search form on the Google Maps website you will get a map that shows the meeting place >> click here and see.

As of 2011 the PBTC meeting places for the End-to-End Hike Series have links to Google Maps making use of coordinates like 45.190236, -81.420550.

If you own an in-car GPS, you can enter those coordinates and the GPS will lead you to the rural location. Check "Entering Coordinates in Recent Garmin Nüvi GPS Receivers" if you want to see how you enter coordinates like 45.190236, -81.420550 in an in-car GPS.

Bruce Peninsula Day Hike Guide (8 maps)

The PBTC publishes a very handy map package for planning your hikes and to carry with you on the hike(s). Check out the Bruce Peninsula Day Hike Guide web page for more details and where you can obtain a copy.

Bruce Trail Reference (BTC Maps)

Each Bruce Trail Club provides the Bruce Trail Conservancy with detailed information for the publication of a small binder of over 40 full-colour maps of the entire Bruce Trail. These maps also contain text describing the trail, provide information about parking, as well as side trails and access trails. The binder is entitled the Bruce Trail Reference and is updated frequently. For more information about the B.T. Reference go to the BTC Store web page.

The Bruce County Map Factory

The Bruce County Map Factory is an online interactive mapping application which runs on ESRI's ArcIMS Internet mapping technology. This application is known as a Web-based GIS (Geographic Information System), and it contains land-related information for all of Bruce County.

The GIS includes various map layers such as aerial photography, roads, property parcels, zoning, lot & concession fabric, landmarks, facilities and services, etc. It also contains base map layers such as rivers, lakes, elevation contours, wooded areas, wetlands, and more. All of this information is presented in the form of an intelligent, interactive map. Feel free to explore! Go to The Bruce County Map Factory.