As is the case with all of our best ideas, the idea to design canoe and hiking route guides for our backyard, the NWT, was born and developed during one of our canoe trips. In preparation for this particular trip, we had spent hours looking over maps and talking with folk from around the globe whom had previously paddled that way, and then evenings upon evenings formatting and printing maps. We found that there were others like us, looking for either a quick route sketch for a jaunt close to home or looking for more detailed route information to piece together a map for a long trip through the farthest stretches of the Territory.
We found that information and maps for routes in the NWT are not easily accessible. A quick comparative search between bookstores in the NWT and in the Yukon and other parts of the country revealed that indeed there were shelves of canoe route information in most other places except the NWT.
Thus in 2014 was born Arctic Tern, a Yellowknife-based map guide business. The business is named after the tiny bird that we see during our travels who truly does the most exploring on the planet. They have the longest migration of any animal in the world as they live in perpetual summer, travelling from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back every year.
We’ve taken it upon ourselves to encourage more people to paddle close to their Yellowknife homes and to show those from afar the great outdoor opportunities available in this Territory. We’ve barely touched the tip of the iceberg as far as routes are concerned and the possibilities are endless, but we plan to continue adding to our list of route guides as long as we continue exploring, and you, our fellow adventurers, continue to support our efforts. In return for your support, we hope to offer you convenient, accurate and affordable guides to encourage you to paddle and hike more often and further afield.
We’ve paddled all of these routes and taken detailed notes and photos the whole way. But we’re bound to have made some mistakes along the way, so please let us know if you find something not quite right so we can update it for the next print run. We hate inaccuracies as much as you do.
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