Courses

Courses

Want to learn how to make orienteering maps? We offer an ever-expanding catalogue of introductory and professional development style courses. Check out our calendar and catalogue below.

Can't find what you're looking for or want a specific course offered for your club? Email jeff@navigationsports.ca


Upcoming Offerings

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Zoom | 6:30 PM ET | 2.5 hrs | $67.50 CAD

Laying Out Your Map

In this tutorial style course you will practice adding new colours and symbols in the mapping software while adding key map elements to prepare your map for printing.

Details

Tags: Introductory | OCAD | practical

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Zoom | 6:30 PM ET | 2.5 hrs | $67.50 CAD

Karttapullautin

In this course you will learn how to use free software (Karttapullautin) to generate smoothed contours you can import and use directly in your map projects.

Details

Tags: Intermediate

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Zoom | 6:00 PM ET | 3 hrs | $80.00 CAD

Processing Lidar for Fieldwork (using OCAD)

In this course you will how to use OCAD’s lidar processing wizard to turn lidar into detailed base material for drawing contours and seeing other details in the terrain.

Details

Tags: Intermediate

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Zoom | 6:00 PM ET | 3/12 hrs | $245.00 CAD

Interpreting Lidar/Contour Drawing
(Day 1)

This 4x3 hour course teaches participants the fundamentals of one of the most complex aspects of drawing a good orienteering map: how to draw contours based on lidar data.

Details

Tags: Intermediate | practical

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Zoom | 6:00 PM ET | 3/12 hrs | $245.00 CAD

Interpreting Lidar/Contour Drawing
(Day 2)

This 4x3 hour course teaches participants the fundamentals of one of the most complex aspects of drawing a good orienteering map: how to draw contours based on lidar data.

Details

Tags: Intermediate | practical

*Times shown are in your local time.


Course Catalogue

Introductory
Duration: 2.5 hrs Cost: $67.50 Level: Introductory
theoretical practical

This 2.5 hour online course is part 1 of Navigation Sports' Introduction to Orienteering Mapping course. In it, you will learn what you need to know to set up your first mapping project to modern mapping standards.

This module is mix of learning about foundational topics and tutorial-style practice. You will learn about a variety of topics that will make your first project (and all future projects) better, easier, and more rewarding while assembling your first project! Topics include:

  • Basic mapping concepts: Working with data, drawing maps, fieldwork, base map layers / templates, etc.
  • Common orienteering mapping software; OCAD or Open Orienteering Mapper (OOM)*
  • Georeferencing
  • Declination
  • Sourceing and using Open Data
  • How to get aerial photos using SAS Planet

* Instances of this course will focus either on OCAD or OOM.

The Using Open Orienteering Mapper or Using OCAD, Introduction to Fieldwork, and Laying out Your Map modules will allow you to take the project you start in this course to completion. See our course catalogue for more.

Upcoming classes: There are no scheduled classes. If you would like to request a class, email jeff@navigationsports.ca

Advanced
Duration: 6 hrs Cost: $120.00 Level: Advanced

This 6 hour course teaches participants advanced fieldwork topics and techniques. The specific content of this course changes depending on the terrain it' being taught in.

Typically the class starts with a morning of exploring an existing map and how it was mapped and why it was mapped that way. After lunch in the field, participants will have a few hours to practice making complex mapping decisions in the field with guidance from the instructor.

Upcoming classes: There are no scheduled classes. If you would like to request a class, email jeff@navigationsports.ca

Intermediate
Duration: 2.5 hrs Cost: $67.50 Level: Intermediate

This 2.5 hour online course teaches participants how to use Karttapullautin to generate exploratory orienteering maps (also often called auto-generated maps) from lidar. Karttapullautin generates contours and other landform features as well as an orienteering style base map. In this class you will learn the basics of using the software as well as how to adjust the settings to optimize the output.

Upcoming dates:
Tuesday, March 3, 2026 | Zoom