Data attribution

Every point of interest on CanoeMap comes from a source that publishes surveyed coordinates. Nothing is read off a scanned map. The counts below are generated from the data actually shipped with this build.

Points of interest

• CanVec – Open Government Licence - Canada. 5,353 features. Natural Resources Canada. Hydro obstacles (rapids, falls) and ManMade leisure areas (campgrounds) from the 1:50,000 series. source
• OpenStreetMap – Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. 3,565 features. © OpenStreetMap contributors. Read from the Geofabrik Canada extract or the Overpass API. source
• Published GPS positions – see each source. 647 features. Exact coordinates that parks, paddling organizations and trip reports publish as numbers (latitude and longitude, GPX or KML). Each point keeps the page it came from. Nothing here is read off a map image.
• Canadian Aquatic Barriers Database (CABD) – Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). 575 features. Canadian Wildlife Federation. Dams, used for non-commercial purposes only. Changed: dams that the database records as removed or decommissioned are left out. The dam points on this site are shared under the same licence. source
• Canadian Geographical Names Database – Open Government Licence - Canada. 512 features. Geographical Names Board of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. The national gazetteer, and the source of most named features here. source
• Réseau Zec – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). 75 features. Public data of the zecs, Quebec's controlled harvesting zones: campgrounds and launch ramps. Changed: on a route, a campground or launch within 150 m of a point already there is merged into that point. source
• Land Information Ontario – Open Government Licence - Ontario. 35 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Ontario. Ontario Hydro Network rapids and falls where CanVec has none. source
• Nova Scotia Topographic Database – Open Government Licence - Nova Scotia. 30 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Nova Scotia. Rapids and falls where CanVec has none. source
• Provincial open data – Open Government Licence - Ontario / Yukon. 28 features. Ontario Trail Network (LIO Open Data), Open Government Licence - Ontario. GeoYukon Transportation trails, Open Government Licence - Yukon. source
• Alberta Base Hydrography – Open Government Licence - Alberta. 23 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Alberta. Falls and rapids from the Base Hydrography Point Update where CanVec has none. source
• National Hydro Network – Open Government Licence - Canada. 17 features. Natural Resources Canada. source
• New Brunswick Hydrographic Network – Open Government Licence - New Brunswick. 17 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - New Brunswick. Falls and rapids where CanVec has none. source
• Recreation Sites and Trails BC – Open Government Licence - British Columbia. 10 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - British Columbia. Recreation site campsites and launches, and the portage trails of canoe-route projects. source
• Parks Canada – Open Government Licence - Canada. 8 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada. Campsites from the Parks Canada Accommodation dataset, and backcountry campsites and boat launches from the Parks Canada Facilities dataset. source
• USDA Forest Service – U.S. federal government work, public domain. 8 features. Superior National Forest. Campsites in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Each site is on the US shore, and a camper there needs a Boundary Waters permit. Changed: on a route, a campsite within 150 m of a point already there is merged into that point. source
• Sépaq – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). 5 features. Société des établissements de plein air du Québec, Sentiers estivaux (Données Québec). Portages only, and only trails whose position method is stated (orthophoto, BDTQ or GPS). Changed: each trail is drawn as one point, the end nearest the route on a route and the midpoint elsewhere. source
• Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) – U.S. Public Domain. 3 features. U.S. Geological Survey. Rapids and falls in New York, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, from the US national gazetteer. source

Where more than one source describes the same feature the records are merged into one point and every contributing source is recorded on it.

Points away from our routes

The map also draws surveyed points on any water, not only on the routes this site documents. They come from these sources.

• CanVec – Open Government Licence - Canada. 325,470 features. Natural Resources Canada. Hydro obstacles (rapids, falls) and ManMade leisure areas (campgrounds) from the 1:50,000 series. source
• Canadian Aquatic Barriers Database (CABD) – Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). 35,499 features. Canadian Wildlife Federation. Dams, used for non-commercial purposes only. Changed: dams that the database records as removed or decommissioned are left out. The dam points on this site are shared under the same licence. source
• Parks Canada – Open Government Licence - Canada. 9,289 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada. Campsites from the Parks Canada Accommodation dataset, and backcountry campsites and boat launches from the Parks Canada Facilities dataset. source
• Canadian Geographical Names Database – Open Government Licence - Canada. 5,021 features. Geographical Names Board of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. The national gazetteer, and the source of most named features here. source
• Réseau Zec – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). 2,591 features. Public data of the zecs, Quebec's controlled harvesting zones: campgrounds and launch ramps. Changed: on a route, a campground or launch within 150 m of a point already there is merged into that point. source
• National Hydro Network – Open Government Licence - Canada. 2,445 features. Natural Resources Canada. source
• USDA Forest Service – U.S. federal government work, public domain. 1,947 features. Superior National Forest. Campsites in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Each site is on the US shore, and a camper there needs a Boundary Waters permit. Changed: on a route, a campsite within 150 m of a point already there is merged into that point. source
• Recreation Sites and Trails BC – Open Government Licence - British Columbia. 1,822 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - British Columbia. Recreation site campsites and launches, and the portage trails of canoe-route projects. source
• Land Information Ontario – Open Government Licence - Ontario. 745 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Ontario. Ontario Hydro Network rapids and falls where CanVec has none. source
• Nova Scotia Topographic Database – Open Government Licence - Nova Scotia. 711 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Nova Scotia. Rapids and falls where CanVec has none. source
• Maine GeoLibrary – Public use. 578 features. Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands and Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. State-managed and state-assisted boat launches. Changed: on a route, a launch within 150 m of a point already there is merged into that point. source
• Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) – U.S. Public Domain. 514 features. U.S. Geological Survey. Rapids and falls in New York, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, from the US national gazetteer. source
• Sépaq – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). 508 features. Société des établissements de plein air du Québec, Sentiers estivaux (Données Québec). Portages only, and only trails whose position method is stated (orthophoto, BDTQ or GPS). Changed: each trail is drawn as one point, the end nearest the route on a route and the midpoint elsewhere. source
• New Brunswick Hydrographic Network – Open Government Licence - New Brunswick. 463 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - New Brunswick. Falls and rapids where CanVec has none. source
• Provincial open data – Open Government Licence - Ontario / Yukon. 227 features. Ontario Trail Network (LIO Open Data), Open Government Licence - Ontario. GeoYukon Transportation trails, Open Government Licence - Yukon. source
• Manitoba Waterbody Entry Points – OpenMB Information and Data Use Licence. 212 features. Contains information from the Manitoba government, licensed under the OpenMB Information and Data Use Licence. Boat launches and overland routes to lakes and rivers, from Manitoba Wildlife and Fisheries. source
• Alberta Base Hydrography – Open Government Licence - Alberta. 197 features. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Alberta. Falls and rapids from the Base Hydrography Point Update where CanVec has none. source
• Wikidata – Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0). 31 features. Portage items with a coordinate, in Canada and the United States, read from QLever's copy of Wikidata. source

Route lines

• National Hydro Network – Open Government Licence - Canada. 523 features. Natural Resources Canada. source
• OpenStreetMap – Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. 198 features. © OpenStreetMap contributors. Read from the Geofabrik Canada extract or the Overpass API. source
• provincial_open_data – licence not mapped (105)
• National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) – U.S. Public Domain. 7 features. U.S. Geological Survey. Rivers in the United States, drawn between the put-in and the take-out that each route publishes. source

Research sources

Route write-ups on this site are written by us, not copied. These are the sites and publications they were researched against, counted from the research record kept with each route. Naming them is not a licence claim, it is credit for work that shaped ours.

• myccr.com – consulted for 218 routes.
• paddlingmag.com – consulted for 132 routes.
• northernontario.travel – consulted for 76 routes.
• wikipedia.org – consulted for 63 routes.
• bonjourquebec.com – consulted for 56 routes.
• aventurequebec.ca – consulted for 53 routes.
• sepaq.com – consulted for 52 routes.
• en.wikipedia.org – consulted for 50 routes.
• ontarioparks.ca – consulted for 47 routes.
• paddling.com – consulted for 43 routes.
• openstreetmap.org – consulted for 36 routes.
• cartespleinair.org – consulted for 33 routes.
• parks.canada.ca – consulted for 32 routes.
• blackfeather.com – consulted for 30 routes.

Canadian Canoe Routes (myccr.com) is also where a number of routes were first identified. We take from it what a listing cannot own: a route's name, its province, its distance and a link back. Their crawl-delay is honoured and their forum is never fetched.

Route descriptions and documents

Route write-ups link back to the document they came from. Those documents are their authors' work and are used under the terms below.

• cartespleinair.org – CC BY-NC, source attribution required (451 routes)
• www.myccr.com – see source (24 routes)
• chrs.ca – see source (5 routes)
• ancien.cartespleinair.org – see source (4 routes)
• www.kayak.yk.ca – see source (4 routes)
• web.archive.org – see source (2 routes)
• www.battenkill.com – see source (1 route)

Land tenure

• Ontario crown land – Land Information Ontario, Crown Land - MNR Unpatented Land, Open Government Licence - Ontario. 62,303 polygons. source.
• Quebec public land – Subdivisions territoriales forestieres (STF), MRNF Quebec, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0). 28,760 polygons. source. The MRNF states that the public and private limits in the STF were adapted for its own needs and differ from the official source, the Registre du domaine de l'État.

These layers show tenure, which is who holds the land. Tenure is not permission to camp, and the rules differ by province.

Protected areas and watershed groups

Route pages say how much of each route runs through protected areas and list the groups that look after its river. A group is listed when its official boundary holds the route's line, or when it is dedicated to the river the route is named for. Every group's own website was loaded on 2026-10-27 and its name found there, or its acronym where a Quebec organization goes by one.

• Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database (CPCAD) – Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2025 release, Open Government Licence - Canada. Protected areas and interim protected areas, 21,619 polygons, measured against 641 route lines, 244 of which pass through at least one. source.
• Zones de gestion intégrée de l'eau par bassin versant (ZGIEBV) – Ministère de l'Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), Québec. 40 zones, read from the ministry's own service. source.
• Les OBV du Québec – Regroupement des organismes de bassins versants du Québec (ROBVQ). The official list of Quebec's watershed organizations, used to check names and websites. source.
• Conservation Authority Admin Area – Land Information Ontario, Open Government Licence - Ontario. 36 conservation authority areas. source.
• Find a Conservation Authority – Conservation Ontario. Websites of Ontario's conservation authorities. source.
• Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils – Government of Alberta. Alberta's designated watershed councils and their websites. source.

Routes published by a province

These are a province's own canoe routes, drawn as a reference layer. They are not this site's routes and most of them have no page here.

• Ontario Trail Network – Land Information Ontario, Open Government Licence - Ontario. 48 paddling routes, 10,976 km. source.

Base map

• Mapbox and OpenStreetMap – Mapbox terms, ODbL.

Please contact [email protected] for licence questions or takedown requests.

© 2026 Thrive Adventures Inc. All rights reserved.