Fisheries and Oceans Website

All paddlers need to know how to learn about where we are taking our small boats. Where can you get an affordable chart, or a free one, of the waters where you'll be sea kayaking? What about getting an idea about the Great Lakes shoreline where you're considering paddling next year? What are the tides like in Porlier Pass? Plenty of questions come to mind.

For Canadian small boat users, we've got the website for Fisheries and Oceans. Here's a photo from their homepage -- your tax dollars at work! They have a page for Nautical Charts and Services from the Canadian Hydrographic Service. Look here for links to paper and digital charts and their prices, info on Tides, Currents, and Water Levels, and interactive maps.

Other countries have their government resources online, and a good search engine can take you to their websites, but this is a Canadian one. And while we're thinking about the Fisheries and Oceans website, this is a good time to contact your local Member of Parliament, to ask how the federal government's new legislation will affect the department of Fisheries and Oceans.