where do i get canadian topos?

[sherjatt]

i installed mapsource and maps are not very detailed.  how do i get canadian topos?
is there a place where i can read up about that?

[fleetwalker]

If you have an Oregon/Colorado/Dakota unit, you can also utilize the custom map ability to load the raster images of the Canadian Government paper topos (1:50K).   

The geoTiffs are available at
http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/product/search.do?id=10119

You can read about making custom maps at http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/onthetrail/custommaps#fragment-2

You will want a utility like G-Raster to break the GeoTiffs into usable JPEG tiles.  See http://moagu.com/?page_id=155

You'll probably also want Google Earth (which is pretty cool in and of itself), although it isn't strictly necessary.

Sadly, you can only load a very limited number of Topos this way.  I get about 20 tiles per Topo.  Since the units are limited to 100 tiles, that's just 5 topos.  They are very nice maps, though the resolution isn't quite as good as on most detailed US Topos.  They are generally more up-to-date than US topos (the raster maps anyway).

With any luck, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources will make it's Ontario Base Maps available digitally someday.  They are 1:10K, which beats anything I'm aware of in the U.S.  See http://themnrstore.mnr.gov.on.ca/english/map.asp?tid=0&cat=3&subcat=4 for previews.

Of course, in many ways vector maps are better, but I grew up on the paper maps, and I still love the way they look, especially now that I don't actually have to carry them around.