Bill's Biography

I have been creating/updating maps ever since I started orienteering 37 years ago. It became a "hobjob" about 10 years ago when I escaped the IT rat race to enjoy, among other things, this fine art called cartography. Without any formal education in the art, I switched the name of my IT company and jumped into the map-making business. My first formal contract was with National Defense for an orienteering map of one of their training areas near Ottawa - where I still live. It's a restricted area so all I can show you is a sample. : )

Since then, I have worked on dozens of local maps for "A" and "B" meets as well as many maps for other clubs outside the Ottawa area. Major projects include maps for two recent Canadian Championships in New Brunswick and Ottawa.

 Despite all the advances in technology, creating maps for orienteers is still very much an "old fashioned" process. Lots of outdoor legwork with a great deal of room for interpretation, generalization, and freedom of expression. I like that.

I also like building web pages the "old fashioned" way - with a basic web page editor and FTP for file management. I thought about creating a Facebook page (or something similar) but I prefer this more focused approach. I like big graphics (but not so big that it slows down the response), large fonts, and simple navigation between pages.

Traveling to undiscovered parts of this beautiful country - as well as other parts of this world - has always been an important aspect of my orienteering experience. Every new meet is a "destination event". Likewise for mapping. I have worked in only two countries and three provinces so far but I will be reaching out for more.

Getting more orienteers involved with mapping has been a goal of mine over the last few years. As such, I have been conducting training sessions for new mappers. I will include the curriculum I have used with comments on what has worked best to get them started and to support the fairly long learning curve. After 10 years I am still learning - lots!

Cheers, Bill Anderson