I agree with the comments above.  We usually travel in groups of 6 or more so finding areas with multiple suitable sites is key to planning a trip. The PCD has been a valuable resource for doing that - thanks!  I rely on the tent pad #s and comments - and the date they were made - as much as the star ratings.

Anyone can save a permanent record of the average ratings for each campsite in pcd by downloading the oziexplorer file. There is one file for inuks and one for non-inuks, and you only get the average rating for each campsite, not the individual ratings or the text comments, but maybe that's good enough.

If you don't want to use Oziexplorer or Memory-Map, the Oziexplorer file data can also be read in in Excel. Go to "Data" - "From Text" - (select the Oziexplorer file) - select "delimited"and check the "comma" box, then import the data into a new worksheet, making sure the data type of column B is "text".

Azalea's help file tells you what each column refers to. The only one that's a bit of a nuisance is the one ending up in "column K" in the Excel sheet. If you want to parse that column into something a bit cleaner, you can create six new columns, with the following formulas:

Column K: Already contains a string like this:    ?:?:Namakan River    :-m---
Columns V through Z should be blank, so enter the following formulas into line 5 and copy them to the other rows in the sheet:
Column V: =TRIM(LEFT(K5,FIND(":",K5,1)-1))
Column W: =MID(K5,LEN(LEFT(K5,FIND(":",K5,1)-1))+2,100)
Column X: =LEFT(W5,FIND(":",W5,1)-1)
Column Y:=MID(W5,LEN(X5)+2,100)
Column Z: =LEFT(Y5,FIND(":",Y5,1)-1)
Column AA: =MID(Y5,LEN(Z5)+2,100)

Columns W and Y can be hidden; Columns V, X, Z and AA contain the average rating, number of tent pads, lake name, and original data source for each site respectively.

I won't promise anything, but this should work with free spreadsheet programs like Open Office if you don't have Excel.

I don't mean to be critical or contentious, but is a few bucks really not affordable?  That's a serious question, no jerking around intended.

I'm the creator of MN Canoeing. I just wanted to explain the move and answer some of the questions that have come up here. I haven't been able to get a hold of AZ since he gave me the data and we made an agreement. Perhaps he will come back and chime in.

The public PCD ratings will remain free. That is part of my agreement with AZ. In any case, I don't believe in charging for access to anything that was contributed by people other than myself (unless that is their wish). What I am charging for is the parts of the website that have been very labor-intensive (hundreds of hours on my part). So, in short, no one is losing access to the PCD.

With AZ's approval, I have been using the "average" PCD ratings for awhile. With moving all of the data to MN Canoeing, I now have all of the comments and individual ratings as well. It is true that I used to remove all of the "not a campsite" locations, but now I put them back on the map, so they can also be updated now.

I tried matching up the usernames in the PCD to the usernames on MN Canoeing. If you are a member and I was able to match it up, you have the ability to add, update, and delete your ratings. If you register and then want to associate your PCD ratings with your username, just send me an email via the website.

Right now, only the public ratings are publicly available. (If I was able to match your username, you also have access to your own Inukshuk ratings, but no one else does.) AZ and I agreed to continue the discussion about the Inukshuk ratings here. I am very grateful for the contributions that the QJ community made to the PCD (I have used it myself extensively the past few years). I would also hate to see the Inukshuk ratings just disappear. I told AZ that I would be more than willing to make a deal with the QJ community.

As I understand it, the original intent was to make sure the people with access to the Inukshuk ratings also were contributors to the Quetico community. If db is willing to work with me on this, I can grant access to the Inukshuk ratings to any Inukshuks on QJ. On the MN Canoeing side, I can either grant access with a premium membership or if you have accumulated so many "points" (earned by rating campsites, posting trip reports, etc.). I would lean towards the "points" solution since I don't want to charge for access to user-contributed data, but I will leave this open for discussion.

I am very grateful for this community's contributions over the years, so I take very seriously your concerns and suggestions.

It has been a busy few weeks but I am back.

One of the major considerations for me in moving the data to mncanoeing was my PCD was not just data.  There was a whole programming "engine" behind it.  The way that engine worked was very old-fashioned.  You ever notice how long it took some map pages to load?  Instead of using tools available now, there was code creating a small map file from a very big one so the website could display that small map file.  Because of that design, there was no way to scroll the map. And that is just one example.

I had pondered re-writing the whole thing, but then I became aware of the mncanoeing website.  It has everything in it (and more) that I would have put in a re-write.  It was just plain stupid to re-invent the wheel, if  Ben was willing to continue to give QJ'ers the kind of access we had enjoyed to date.

I encourage you to, try his site if you have not done so already.  It is way better than the PCD.  I think you will all find this is a vast improvement.

This was not a sell out to some money-hungry enterprise.  Ben is a canoeist just like the rest of us. Any proceeds he will get will not come close to paying for all the labor he has put in.  And even then he is donating some of the proceeds to canoeing organizations. So I gave him a big thanks for what he is providing us.