mastertangler wrote on Oct 24^th, 2010 at 5:39pm:

The Topo Canada for the computer...........Is that the same program that I can purchase through Garmin to load into my GPS?

Nearly right.  Topo Canada (and many other products offered by Garmin) is actually DATA.  The program that manipulates the data is MapSource.  Much of the Topo Canada is LINE data ... e.g., contour lines, shore lines, etc.  So, when you add a waypoint, you are simply adding more data (in the form of a POINT rather than a line).  Other features of mapping tools (like MapSource) allow you to draw your own lines (for example), which could be anticipated routes (which I find really helpful to estimate total travel distance over a snake-like paddle through a series of lakes and portages).  The tools often label these forms as ROUTES and TRACKS.  

So ultimately, what you load to your GPS can be a combination of MAPS (from Topo Canada), WAYPOINTS, ROUTES, and TRACKS (which you can create for yourself or find elsewhere).

By lesson 42, we will talk about creating custom waypoint symbols so you can reduce the amount of clutter on your screen (you may find that the built-in waypoint symbols are a bit large for your taste).

dd