[Qgis-user] New user

[Stephen Wandling]

I had worked a bit with ArcGIS about 12 years ago and have been 
struggling to make it work for me again.  I have been pretty successful 
except in one area.

I do not have an ESRI account, so when I built a map on their free World 
Topographic Map and exported it as a PDF, it was of very low quality.  
It would have been a waste of time and money to have it plotted.

My quest is for high res data.  I live in the SW of British Columbia and 
have spent a week looking for all of the "free" GIS data that the 
federal and provincial governments say they have made available.  So, 
far my searches have failed to find this data.  I can get census data 
from 2002, but I can not get a topographic base map of the area where I 
live.

I had some data from my school days, and I can build a fairly decent map 
with it.  But, it lacks any contour lines.  And being based on the 
British Columbia government cartography, which was shut down in 1992, it 
has significant errors, like missing a creek that runs quite near to my 
home.

8 or 9 years back, when I was seeking a map for my Garmin GPS, there 
were a few guys in British Columbia that had good data and were giving 
it away.  They did not mention where they got this data.  I do not seem 
to find them these days.

If you can point me in the right direction for this data, I will much 
appreciate it.

Stephen