2007 Map Gallery
Dear ESRI Users, It is my great pleasure to present ESRI Canada's eighth Map Gallery calendar. It contains a small selection of the many superb maps created by ESRI users across Canada. I want to sincerely thank everyone who submitted an entry for this year's gallery. Maps have been used for centuries as a tool for communicating the marvelous diversity of our world to others. This past year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Atlas of Canada, originally published to communicate Canada's vast geography and economic potential to European investors. Today, geographic information systems (GIS) are used to produce electronic maps and atlases, published on the internet, communicating to all, in ever greater detail, how beautiful and yet fragile our world really is. Our geographic knowledge continues to grow and is reflected in these very informative maps. Maps were made for revealing hidden patterns, identifying potential land use, planning infrastructure, attracting tourists, managing events, protecting our natural heritage, marketing local farm produce, inventorying our mineral wealth, prospecting for wind energy, visualizing our landscape in three dimensions, modeling geographic effects on human health , and communicating the complexity of our cities. These maps drive home how interconnected our world is. Over 400 years ago, John Donne wrote "No man is an island, entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.". These maps are a glimpse of an entire community of people working together to sustain our common environment. ArcGIS continues to evolve as a tool for managing geographic information and making better maps. New cartographic capabilities make it easier to create and publish maps both on paper and on the internet. ArcGIS Server provides advanced cartographic capabilities to a much wider user community. ArcGIS desktop users can author maps, globes, and models and then easily publish these with the ArcGIS server for use by the entire organization, helping us better communicate our world. Geography on the internet is emerging as a new medium, revolutionizing our ability to organize and search for information, in the same way the web browser did over 10 years ago. In 2007, ESRI Canada will continue to expand the Geography Network Canada portal http://www.geographynetwork.ca/, adding free base map data for Nova Scotia to the already published base map services of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba. As we begin another year, my colleagues and I are more committed than ever to serving you by better understanding your needs and helping you understand our products and services. This coming year we will be hosting 17 user group meetings, 30 special interest group meetings, attending many conferences, and holding dozens of seminars across the country. GeoConnections is again holding a series of workshops across Canada in 2007 to better understand the needs of those who use Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) as a source of geographic knowledge. I look forward to personally meeting many of you at these events. On behalf of all of us at ESRI Canada, I want to thank you for your support and look forward to serving you for many years to come. From our families to yours, Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2007. Yours truly,
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