Free Data & Software

Provincial GIS/Mapping Data Sources:

Manitoba Land Initiative (MLI): In February 2003, the Manitoba Land Initiative (MLI), an interdepartmental committee of data producing departments within the Provincial Government, placed its GIS digital data warehouse on the Internet. This initiative enables easy access to this valuable geo-spatial information without restrictive licensing requirements and fees. Members of the public only have to fill out an online registration form that acknowledges the data disclaimer and user agreement, and assigns the user a user-name and password at the end of the registration process. Provincial GIS data sets include digital air photos, topographic data (scales ranging from 1:20,000 to 1:2,000,000), administrative boundaries, municipal maps, cadastral maps, town and village plans, roads and rail lines, utilities, water maps, geology, soil classification, forestry inventory, land use/cover maps, geographical names and digital imagery. http://mli.gov.mb.ca

Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives: Recently the department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives launched the Agri-Maps Map Viewer that displays Manitoba's Agriculture GIS information in a dynamic/interactive web-based format. http://geoapp2.gov.mb.ca/website/mafri/index.html

Mineral Resources Division's GIS Map Gallery: The Mineral Resources Division's GIS Map Gallery allows users to interactively view various data sets related to mining activity while providing the option to download GIS files ranging from First Nation. Trapline information to Provincial Mining Claims.
http://www.gov.mb.ca/itm/mrd/geo/gis/index.html

Federal GIS Data Sources:

Geogratis: GeoGratis is a web and file transfer protocol (ftp) site that distributes geospatial data of Canada. Data is available for download, without charge. Vector mapping data is available in scales ranging from 1:50 000 to 1:30 000 000 in a variety of file formats. http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/clf/en

GeoBase: GeoBase is a federal, provincial and territorial government initiative that is overseen by the Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG). It is undertaken to ensure the provision of, and access to, a common, up-to-date and maintained base of quality geospatial data for all of Canada. By creating the GeoBase portal, the partners are also improving Canadians' access to: Administrative Boundaries; Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED); Canadian Geodetic Network; Geographical Names of Canada (toponymy); Landsat-7 Orthoimage; National Road Network (NRN). http://www.geobase.ca/

Free GIS Viewer

Users can have a look at the various Internet GIS datasets without the need for expensive GIS software. There are programs available online and free for download such as ESRI’s easy to use GIS data viewer called ArcExplorer (Windows 98/2000/NT/XP). Using this free viewer, individuals can examine much of the online data layered together, zoom in and out on the layers, identify features, perform simple queries and use the attribute data associated with the spatial data to create colourful maps. ArcExplorer is available at: http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/

Free maps

Google Maps provides on-line search and display of maps and satellite images all over the world. Users can search for businesses and get driving directions. Google Maps-API can be downloaded and implemented into any website that is accessible free of charge. http://maps.google.com/

MSN provides a similar service to get directions at http://mappoint.msn.com. There are other map viewers available. The ones listed here are only examples of this kind of service.

Free 3D Earth viewer

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and Google Search to provide access to geographic information all over the world. After downloading the software, users can fly from space to a neighborhood, type in an address and zoom right in, search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels in selected areas, get driving directions, tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings, save and share your searches and favorites and add one’s own annotations. Upgrades allowing further features are available for $20 and $400. http://earth.google.com/