Gem Trek’s Changing Cartography Styles

The first map published by Gem Trek was Kananaskis Lakes in 1991. It was a manually-drafted 1:50,000-scale topographic map based on topographical information found on National Topographic System (NTS) maps produced by the Canadian Government. These maps, while...

The History of Gem Trek Maps (Part 2)

Click here for the early history of Gem Trek Maps (Part 1). Gem Trek Publishing was founded by Donna and Roger Nelson in 1991. Here is the second part of the Gem Trek story. By the mid-1990s, Gem Trek maps had a wide following in the Canadian Rockies, especially among...

The Early History of Gem Trek Maps

Gem Trek Maps was founded by Donna and Roger Nelson in 1991. The Nelsons had opened Map Town, a retail map and travel bookstore, in downtown Calgary, Alberta, in 1989. Here, they were deluged by requests for up-to-date hiking maps of Kananaskis Country, a popular...