It’s always frustrated me that something so clearly spatial as the Canadian Avalanche Centre’s avalanche bulletins aren’t on a Google map. Based on my recent work on the map of SAR teams in Canada I figured it would only take…
Blog Archives
Mapping SAR Teams
I’ve been doing some work for the BC Search and Rescue Association, and the other day I posted by Twitter, Facebook and Google+ a prototype of the map I’m working on for them. Here is the map, embedded below. View…
Locating lost people using smart phones
A few weeks back I managed a search for two people lost near Buntzen Lake. After we rescued them, I learned that one of them had a smart phone with a GPS (in this case, an iPhone), but neither subject…
Tagged with: emergency, GPS, map, project, rescue, smart phone, SMS, technology, YourLo.ca/tion
Posted in Blog Entry
Posted in Blog Entry
Map of SAR Incidents in BC 2011
My good friend Rick Laing, SAR Manager and member of Ridge Meadows SAR and GIS guru sent me a link to a map he published. It has the locations of all of the SAR teams in BC, and includes all of…
Older Map of Pitt Lake
We came across this map of Pitt Lake in the SAR Archives the other day. Interesting for the place names that aren’t on more modern maps. Funny how the mountains look like cones.
Google moves to Crowdsourcing
Talk about being scooped! The day I post my article on how great OpenStreetMap is for SAR and how Google will never have the detail that OSM has, they open up to crowdsourcing. Now, Google Map Maker is not new,…
SAR and Crowdsourced Maps
The months of September and October have been almost all urban searches for me, a new SAR manager. A few weeks ago we searched for a missing man in North Burnaby, a very urban environment. I’ll give the ending away;…
Tagged with: management, map, mapping, OpenStreetMap, OSM, rescue, SAR, tech, urban, urban interface
Posted in Blog Entry
Posted in Blog Entry
Personal Locator Beacons from the Rescuer’s Perspective
A case study of a recent rescue in Southwest BC My SAR Team just completed a rescue of three stranded hikers in the DeBeck Creek area north of Coquitlam, on the west side of Pitt Lake. If this sounds familiar…
Tagged with: backcountry, beacon, case study, helicopters, HETS, management, map, personal locator beacon, PLB, rescue, safety, Tyler Wright, weather
Posted in Blog Entry, Essay
Posted in Blog Entry, Essay
Why you shouldn’t use Smart Phones for Backcountry Navigation
Smart phones are everywhere. By “Smart Phone” I’m referring to any mobile phone that has additional functions, but specifically for the purposes of this article a smart phone is any phone that has a GPS or A-GPS function. My assertion…
Tagged with: communications, gear, GPS, how-to, map, smart phone, technology
Posted in Blog Entry, Essay
Posted in Blog Entry, Essay
On Coordinates; part 2
In my previous post on coordinates, I stated that the best coordinate representation to use if you need to use geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) was decimal degrees (or DD). It’s preferable to use UTM, which is pretty much a…
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Locate people using their SmartPhones
