Those in Ontario's orienteering community may or may not know that much of the contents of Orienteering Ontario's old office in Toronto is at my Dad's place in Campbellville.
I haven't begun to scratch the surface of sifting through it all. It's impressive in its girth...more daunting than anything.
Within it lies so many special nuggets of our sport's history in our province.
A few of the more golden nuggets are the regional scrapbooks of maps made over the years from all over the province. (Early 70's - around 1990).
I'm going to unearth a map every once in awhile on this thread so that people can reminisce/share tidbits about days/meets gone by...and brainstorm some future use.
Maybe every year we can vote on an old area to be remapped for the next year's provincial (or even national) championship...(if feasible). There are some beauties out there!!
I hope that those currently active in the orienteering/AR community in our province can rally around some these images.
To be blunt...
If you are a club in Ontario who is affiliated with any of these maps, it might be time to think about the feasibility of getting them digitized/remapped (I believe they all are hand drawn).
At the very least, I'm sure the thread will generate some discussion.
Also, I believe Anne Teutsch is compiling a historical archive of 50 years of orienteering in Canada. As a province, we have it covered!! If anyone would like to curate this, it would be much appreciated!!
In the meantime, 2 things:
1. If anyone feels I'm doing anything objectionable by posting these map images...let me know.
2. Help me figure out what to do with all the girth I haven't sifted through. It's important for our heritage. It should be treated appropriately.
Thank you for saving these archives. Yes, at least OOI should arrange to scan and save the maps and newsletters in digital form, jpegs better than PDFs for the maps.
Most of Orienteering Canada's old newsletters are digitally archived. It must have been a big job for Charm to arrange but she got it done.
As for areas to re-map Haliburton Scout Reserve and Dorset would be two at the top of my list.
Thanks for doing this Mark. My parents put that map scrap book together.
My National Champs in (southern) Ontario with re-mapping vote:
sprint and sprint relay: University of Guelph
middle: Starkey Hills (Guelph)
long: Rocky Ridge Ranch (Milton)
Funny thing about the Sudbury terrain. We went there for a Canadian Championships I think in the 1980s and the forest were great - very runnable.
We went back a few years later and the forest were quite a bit thicker. The difference? The first time we were following a catepellar infestation that had cleared away a large percentage of the leaves and udergrowth.
There is also the issue of tackling acid rain. Now that the nickel companies have cleaned up their acts trees and bushes are growing where 50 years ago they couldn't.
Peterborough?
Back in the 1970s TdSC made a map of Burnham Park and a guy named Alan Brunger mapped an area just south and east of Trent. As I recall the contour lines were green.
From what I've seen, the most intriguing maps are around Peterborough/Hailburton/Kawarthas.
Gord: Hailburton Scout Reserve is a behemoth 1:20000 map, which can hold numerous national championships on it without duplicating terrain. It might be our Harriman. It looks quite technical, but I am unsure how runnable the forest is...(which has obviously changed 30-40 years later.) Any thoughts?
I will get up some images as soon as I can.
In the meantime, here are a couple which overlap around Laurentian University in Sudbury:
Denise Demonte, Ron Lowry 1983:
Pat De St. Croix, Dick De St. Croix 1989:
They really made 'em big back in the day, huh? All kinds of 1:15000 monster maps!
Also, here here to husband/wife mapping teams!
Here's one more.
Lake Laurentian
This one is east of the preceding maps. My dad has held cadet events here over the years. He says it's gorgeous, with endless terrain eastward.
I don't know who made this map. My dad says David Bondy updated it, but I imagine it came from an older base.
It would be amazing to see actual orienteering culture come back to S. Ontario, as unfortunately it's been on a steady decline after NAOC 06. It seems like clubs do have awesome maps, but they just rarely seem to use them - like TOC who keep re-using cringy park maps when they have so many awesome areas north of Toronto.
Why was the last time that we had something decent at Rocky/Hilton was when Nick put on the Ontario Long in 2012 before Naoc? Is it because the area is too green to be used now, as Hammer has told me many times? Then why spend resources on remapping something that's already a good map as is, yet isn't being used pretty much at all - arguably one of the best maps here. These days it takes character to get used to training there because of the vegetation, but even after you get over that, you realize Dundas Valley, Hilton/Rocky are way overrun and boring - the once giants. We need new quality maps - for orienteering. Doing a series of 2 day classics on weekends, or middle - chase-start weekends. It's really sad to see how the enthusiasm for the pure sport has fallen, but I hope it can restore.
-I took three hours on a M13-14 course at Haliburton Scout Reserve in my first year of O. I got off on a bearing and missed a trail and ran 1.5km off into the middle of Ontario wilderness. I wanted to quit the sport but I came 3rd of 3 and got a shiny medal and stuck with it.
-All OOA maps at that time were printed in Hamilton Ontario (Rapid Blue Print).
-Eels Creek was used for the Ontario Summer Games. Orienteering there wasn't a fun experience. I believe the map was only ever used once.
-OOA map making and the sport in general was highly government subsidized back then. Government money stopped (in Ontario) in the mid to late 90's.
-In the field 1km in on White Lake Road on the Beaver Meadows map are several cabins. These were owned by Bjorn Kjellstrom and Silva Canada and available to rent for XC skiing. My club would spend a winter weekend there every year. The main Silva house/cottage was a few km away towards Kinmount.
I had a similar experience on a Yellow course at that age, or maybe a tad younger. Is getting massively lost on a course at a young age a rite of passage in orienteering?
Keep posting, these are really neat. What Northern ontario maps are there? Where I grew up (Thunder Bay), I can only recall 2. If you think forests are horrible and thick wher you are, they are nothing like you will find around there, lol.
The Laurentian U ones bring back a lot of memories for me from going to school there and being on the ski team (I got copies of the maps from Ken Sidney). The south end of the "Beaton Trail" map is unfortunately no longer due to a ring road taking out most of it. Like someone mentioned, vegetation in that area has in some areas been restored remarkably well following the industrial damage.
J$ There is at least one surviving orienteering map from 1970's Thunder Bay - It is called Centennial Park. It still gets some use.
Efforts are under way to re- map and expand Centennial as well as the Boulevard Lake area, Old Ft William, Lakehead University and a number of parks and school grounds in the city.
Things look promising for the future for orienteering in Thunder Bay. E-mail me if you are interested in helping.
Sudbury forests are definitely getting thicker but Laurentian University would probably still be the best campus in Canada where you can have S,M, and L races all finish on the same track right in the middle for the terrain/forest. Great venue - but sadly there isn't a club in Sudbury anymore.
Funny coincidence. Just two minutes ago I scanned a photo of Pauli competing at an event in 1970. He was the second Canadian Orienteering Men's elite champion (1969).
I remember many of the maps mentioned here from my visits to Canada in the 70-ies and 80-ies.
I took part in the Ontario Champs at Haliburton Scout Reserve in 1975 but that may be the only one of the maps mentioned so far that I´ve actually competed on.
...and Pauli Kaki was 3rd behind Ron Lowry and Ted de St.Croix at the COC´s in Dundas Valley that same year...
Right you are Bubo.
By the way that year, 1975, the Toronto Globe& Mail, Canada's national newspaper,
carried major photo stories on both the Ontario Champs and the Canadians. I thought we had arrived big time in the media's attention. I still have the clippings dressing up my map books at home.
Sorry to quibble but the Lakehead U map is at least Ontario's second most northern orienteering map. The map of Centennial Park also in Thunder Bay and also apparently made for an Ontario Summer Games is of terrain north of thre city and the university. Given that it has not been updated in at least 35 -40 years it is also probably Canada's oldest orienteering map still in use.
There actually was an Orienteering event in Sault Ste. Marie last weekend!
I remember the last Ont Champs at the Leslie Frost Centre in which the map corrections consisted of someone colouring in the white with a green marker and then saying the green wasn't too bad.
The Nipissing U ski coach would totally introduce O to his team if that map could be updated.
We need an Ontario University Cup for orienteering.
Frost Center is closed now but another example of an Ontario wilderness map. My best memory of that map was beating a future Olympian in the Ontario Champs.
McFarlane Lake was the best of all Sudbury terrains but the worst map. It borders the Beaton Trail map in the east north east portion of the map.
Even though the Frost Centre is now closed, the local municipality continues to maintain the trail system, including excellent classical cross country ski trails (and with a building with limited facilities across the road from the start of the ski trails). I see the municipality still calls the map Frost Centre Hiking Trails: http://www.algonquinhighlands.ca/deptdocs/Frost_Ce...
Good guess Mark! The western edge of the map is LakeRidge Road so the map is adjacent to the ski hill. That yellow area in the south is now a golf course.
Walker's Forest, Uxbridge, Glen Major, Dagmar, Pleasure Valley and this map all border each other. Fantastic area for an adventure run or MTBO.
Much of the southwest corner is now a golf course, and I believe a real estate developer owns most of the west side. There still might be some areas to salvage.
Rough open is a lot more overgrown these days, which makes it a better challenge.
Arkell Hills is one of Canada's best orienteering terrains. Ever. Sadly the annual training camps turned to rogue training and then to no access at all. Pity. I'll never forget the ultra long race that was on Corwhin, Arkell and Starkey. Awesomeness.
I miss orienteering at Arkell. But we have a band from Hamilton that is representin'
Keep posting these Mark. We were talking about the great memories from this thread at the DontGetLost board meeting last night.
This is so fun to look at all these memories. I wish AP had a comment/reply feature to various comments as I so yearn to post quips in the various items! ...Sudbury, my first "contemporary" COCs....great MikeWaddington maps....Pleasure Valley! (I want to go there, best O-map name ever?)...and so on.
Toby Stenbeck, Rick Krogsrud, Rebecca Ryland 1984/1985
Olaf Hansson, Leigh Bailey 1984/1985
The Guelph Gators, (now UKR Gators) will be hosting an O-Cup race on Sunday February 26th on a 1:7500 map of a portion of the northeast part of this map. (pretty much the middle of the map). It's still as enchanting as ever in there...for those who know it.
See soon on AP, OOA website, and TOC website for link and registration! Hoping this evening.
Control picking long-ish middle mania!! 4.7 - 7.8 km, (depending on your handicap).
I competed at Speyside in '74. The Guelph Spring Festival O was a big deal them, probably on par with the Flying Pig today.
The US Marine team was there and they were great rivals for us Canadians coming off a winter hiatus.
I ran hard and knew I was doing well catching up to guys who had started before me. The Blue course was a 'split map' out and back with a water stop at the map exchange. All went well at the exchange at the small knoll, had a drink of water, picked up my new map and was gone. It was not until I finished trhat I was told that there was a control about 100 meters from the knoll, also on a knoll where I was supposed to punch and then follow the ribbons to the map exchange. That was my first and one of my very few DQs in my orienteering life.
Well I sent a thank you note to Sass Peepre for the wonderful event and he wrote back that he was impressed that I wasn't writing to complain about being DQed, a thought that had never occurred to me but I guess it does to some.
PA I also competed in the 1985 WMG and every other WMG up to 2009.
Gillian and Leigh live in Victoria BC and are still active members of Vic-O.
Thanks for posting the 1985 World Master Games maps. Mine inadvertently went out with the trash at a Blue Lake Clinc a year or two later. I participated, as did Marg Ellis (I believe I was was billeted at their place.) As I recall, Hammer would have been vetting because younger orienteers did much of the organizing so that most those who were eligible to compete were able to do so.
Yup I vetted at Saugeen (aka Soggy Highlands) that was buggy and thick. I also vetted M35 course at Starkey which was fast, open, technical and awesome. I recall wondering why all the WMG races weren't just held in Guelph.
Ron (my first coach) and Denise moved from Hamilton to Silver Star / Vernon, BC in early 90's or late 80's. Don't think they have orienteered since.
Walker Woods! Absolutely love this area. Very fast some places even in the summer. Look far - full speed. Map is still very decent, although would be cool to get it updated.
I wonder how many of the late 70's maps my parents ran on. Myst remember to ask them next time I see them. For that matter, I wonder how many of yhem I might have been carried around!
There are certainly bikers there every time I've gone, so I'm sure different trail patterns/new trails as well. The terrain is just so beautiful it's easy to ignore those (the trails. the bikers are friendly) :)
Those Kawartha area maps (Eels Creek, Buckhorn) are fantastic! Wish I had that resource the last 3 years when I ran an O-club out of Trent U in Peterborough. Hammer had sent me some neat old maps of the Trent U campus when I was creating a new one. A lot has changed there!
There was an O-race in the Soo??? I had not heard of this, who put it on?? I was toying with the idea of mapping the Hiawatha area for a race, but that Fort Creek map is a Gem! I will test it out in GPS Orienteering with a virtual course!
Brad: I'm pretty sure it was Lawrence Foster who organized it as part of the loppet weekend.
Hammer will know, but I think there was an ancient map of Hiawatha at one time.
Ah thanks Mike! By linking you reminded me to add the updated base map! Up now!
Thanks Nev! I'll contact him and see what's up. I'd like to get some Orienteering off the ground in the Soo. If he has something going perhaps it could benefit from added awareness and communication. Too my knowledge there is a small but strong base of AR/O peeps here!
Since this thread was active, the boxes from Klepperton's Dad's place have been delivered to the Orienteering Ontario board. This discussion has focused on maps but there is a lot of other material ranging from old invoices to correspondence to cartoons drawn by Eugene Mlynczyk.
Back in the late 80s to mid 90s, OOA had a physical office and a paid executive director. I wasn't around then but I understand that after the OOA office was closed due to lack of funding, the files from that office were boxed and moved to storage about 20 years ago.
OOA has an Archives subgroup tasked with going through these boxes and deciding what to do with the materials. Unfortunately, some files have been damaged by dampness and mice to the point that they have to be thrown out, and the papers weren't sorted in such a way that we've been able to find all the maps that Klepperton located. But there is still plenty to review and a bunch of boxes yet to be opened.
Have any other orienteering clubs/associations come up with ways to document their history or store/share interesting documents and photos? Or does anyone have ideas on how it could be done? Since OOA has no physical location and a low income, we're thinking it has to be an online archive. We've roughly adopted a mission of keeping selected items that "help tell the story of orienteering in Ontario". So we throw out invoices and papers related to physical office operations, for example.
Orienteering Canada set up a very cool 50th anniversary Historical Collection as a blog archive, which is one option, although it isn't organized like typical archives would be. https://orienteeringcanadacollection.blogspot.com/
Barb, happy to chat with you about this. I also have lots of Orienteering Canada stuff to archive. And the blog you mentioned above may or may not be the best way forward. Maybe we can sort something out together.
I love the blog archive and really enjoy the contributions that Oivind has posted there. Rich and personal history. It is too bad that th rest of us have not been able to add to those posts. This summer, knowing that 2022 will be the 50th anniversary of the first Canadian team at WOC I tried to contact the other members to get us to post our memories of the event and the trip. (Did you know for instance that two of us took a side trip to the Olympics in Munich only to find the Israeli hostage taking in progress. Despite the heightened security I did manage to get my way into the Athlete's Village where I was able to take some photos with a Globe &Mail photographer's camera, one of which made it into the paper.) I contacted Mike Day and Bob Kaill. They are both on board to help but I have not been able to reach Russ Evans or Jack Geddes. Does anyone have their contact info?
Sounds like you have some great stories, Gordhun! We've been thinking that it might be helpful to have an informal advisory group of longtime Ontario orienteers who can share information from earlier eras. The two of us in the OOA Archives subgroup have not been around that long.
Hey Gord! I was talking to Russ Evans on Saturday. As you may know Russ was the captain of the McMaster XC team than won three straight OUA men's XC titles in the early 60's. Last year McMaster won their first men's OUA XC title since Russ was on the team. With McMaster as reigning champs and also hosting the OUA champs in Hamilton on Saturday the MAC alumni invited Russ and his team mates to the race to help history repeat itself but alas Guelph upset the MAC team by a mere 8 points.
Russ volunteers every year at Hamilton's schools race.
I will get you his contact info.
For those that don't know Russ was my highschool phys-ed teacher as well as my XC skiing and running coach. Not many orienteers are lucky like me to have a former national orienteering team member as their high school teacher/coach. Such is the rich orienteering history in Hamilton.
funny- from jan-feb 2017 when this thread was very active- and have mentioned Arkell few times, and then back up in late oct 2019-it happened that TOC (with huge involvement from klepperton) hosted Ontario champs at Arkell/ Arboretum near Guelph - first weekend nov 2019 ( less then 3 yrs from discussion to a very good event)
Even with O 'post-poned' for a year or so - big events- i think (hope) some areas will be (maybe) re-mapped again?
I just found this archive. Brian and I were very active members of the Guelph Gators starting in 1973 at our first event at Beaver Meadows. Anyone remember that great map? We recently had a "Gators Golden Years Reunion" in the Rockies of some of the old-timers from the 70's and 80's: Brian and I, Jean Dalton (and Frank Farfan who was a TOC'er), Lee Wisener, Richard Lay, Rebecca Ryland (artist on a few of the maps), and Rick Krogsrud. I briefly scanned the discussion but didn't see a map of The Sass Peepre Memorial Map of Camp Hollyburn (1978), Brian's second map. Brian did the first map of Arkell but I don't know if you have a copy of it. Does anybody remember the "contours only" version of Arkell that we used a number of times for training? We moved to Vancouver in 1989 but have great memories of orienteering in the East (both Canada and the US), during our time in Guelph.
Like Klepperton, I would like to reply to specific posts but can't. So .... We orienteered at Beaver Meadows in1973. It was a fantastic first experience and got both me and Brian hooked on O. I was there as a student in Sass Peepre's U of Guelph Outdoor Education course. As I was married, Sass felt that I could not come unaccompanied so invited Brian to be the official photographer. Once we got to the event, we found that Sass (ever the O-promoter), had registered Brian in the event. He ran Yellow the first day in his hiking boots and jeans and lost a contact lens. But he loved it and ran the next day as well. That began our 47-year and counting love of orienteering!
Re the Speyside map (Guelph), we have a note that on October 14, 1973, there was a "massive turnout (550) for the Guelph Spring Festival Speyside O meet. Marg helped Leida Peepre hawk grub from the scanty shelter of the 'cook tent'"
Those were the days when we got 550 people out to a one-day non-championship event -;
Marg thank you for the posts. 1973 was quite a year for Ontario and Canadian orienteering. And for me. My 1973 map book bulges with maps from the Speyside event (DQ'd by missing a punch at the split map), trip to Sweden, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia for orienteering, NAOC in Ottawa (2nd to Bob Turbyfill), Ontario Champs near Newcastle (2nd), US Champs at Quantico but the highlight was those Canadian Champs at Beaver Meadows (1st). What a venue was Beaver Meadows! A quick look at Google Earth shows the area very little changed. There is a lot we today could learn from the folks of the early 1970s about orienteering marketing. For one the newcomers of the day, like the Ellis', were not treated as afterthoughts to the event. Posters and Press announcements were considered very important. Groups were courted. The post race party was usually quite an experience. Team prizes were important draws. PS While Speyside was a 'one-day non-championship event' it was part of the weekend long Guelph Spring Orienteering Festival 'where the orienteering friends meet again'.
For the Hamilton King's Foresters, another note I found: "Marg started her orienteering career as she won the Yellow course at the HKF meet in the Hamilton Botanical Gardens." (Is that more correctly the Royal Botanical Gardens? I believe this was another event that was part of Sass' U of Guelph Outdoor Education course. It was a required course in the BSc in Human Kinetics.
Gord, re your comment about welcoming newcomers, it was all Sass' doing. If I hadn't been required to take the Outdoor Education course, it might have been awhile before I was introduced to orienteering. His enthusiasm and marketing was legendary.
Re the Mansfield map: OOI (I think) organized a Junior Training Camp on the Mansfield map, June 6,7, 1981. I coached at the camp and wrote "had a run on the silkworm-laden practice course before dark". And on Sunday, we had a Camp Relay at which some bikers rode off with the first control on one of the courses!
Perhaps we should keep trading oldtimer stories Marg. Mansfield is an area of forest largly made up of pine trees planted by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources reforestation program. I once drove to an event there with an older Ottawa member., Egons Rupners. He had come to Canada from Estonia in the 1930s or 40s. As we approached Mansfield Egons told us that his first jiob when he came to Canada was planting trees in that forest. Suddenly some 30 to 40 years later he was back orienteering in the same forest he had helped to create. So neat.
Getting back to this discussion after a busy summer helping out with childcare of our two grandsons while both parents work from home.
I contacted Ilze Rupners, daughter of Egon Rupners, with your story, She thought it was very neat. Ilze orienteered and rock-climbed with us at the U of G in the early 70s. She noted that her father came to Canada from Latvia in 1949.
Found some more notes about the 1985 World Masters Games that took place the week after the COCs in Alberta. There were two qualification races, one on the Kolapore map, one on the Saugeen Highlands map. Bryan and Ken Sidney were the top two of the M35, Ken winning both preliminaries, but Bryan winning the final on the Starkey Hill map. I squeezed out a win in D35 over Gail Gagarin (USA) by 3 seconds! I remember Pat de St. Croix being very involved in the organization of these events. The other WMG events were in Toronto.
Somewhere I have or had a lot of VHS tapes showing those COCs at Mt Laurie and the WMG in Ontario including the three orienteering events, the opening parade and a party hosted by Helen Huculak of Silva. I hope they weren't taped over. But all the important stuff is etched in my mind, anyway. Like this memory from the 1985 COC in Alberta: This was one of the first events in North America where participants, after starting, ran to a 'remote start' marked by the triangle on the map. I took my video camera out to get some film of people going to and past the remote start. Pretty well universally the Swedes, Norwegians etc ran to the triangle and had already studied the map enough that they could keep on going without breaking stride - just like many of us have now learned to do. However almost just as universally the Canadians and Americans would run to the triangle and then stop to study their maps, some for what seemed to be quite a long time. It was a good lesson in how to use 'dead running' time to study ahead on the map.
As a junior at the time, I was one of the pre-runners for the M35 courses for the WMG. I would be particularly keen to see some of the courses of the Kolopore qual race. please scan and post if you have one.
Cool, Mike. Unfortunately, when we moved to Vancouver in 1989, we had to downsize, and in so doing, lost all of our early maps. I wonder if Bryan has copies.
My first memory and impression of orienteering was in the mid '80's. There was an orienteering event that appeared on CBC Sports Weekend (Canada) one afternoon. I distinctly remember runners crossing a field and entering the forest at a path. I have no idea where or what it was - even if it was in Canada or not. Maybe it was the only time orienteering was ever televised in Canada! In any event, it made an impression on me, and except for a few school yard / gym class map exercises, that was it for me and orienteering for the next 30 years. Gord, was this perhaps the 1985 event, or was there some other event that appeared on Canadian TV in the mid '80's that someone remembers?
Saugeen Highlands ( Oliver tract ) still nice forest ( had a short run last week there after 13 yrs_ when Stars hosted Ontario champs there ). who knows...
Mike, I have the WMG '85 maps for M 35 right here. I can scan them but I have no idea how to post anything here. When I get a round tuit I'll e-mail them to you. Ursus: Sorry but I don't remember that particular show but I have a vague recollection of TVOntario doing something about orienteering on one of their fitness shows, I think called Body Break.
Gord, did you run the WMG's? Or do you just have some of the maps? Any for W35? If so, I'd like them, too. I'm sure someone on this list could tell you how to post them.
I took all my early maps to Blue Lake in a brown paper bag in about 1986 or so. They were left behind in our room, and when I checked, had all gone out with the trash :-( so.... @gordhun I've love copies as well
I'll get on both scanning the maps and converting the VHS tapes. BUT for the WMG I only have the M35 (course 8) with my routes on them. For the VHS, taping was so much easier and cheaper than filming with 8 mm that I used to tape a lot of 'junk' just because I could do it. Some serious editing will be needed.