Canada · field skills

Map, Compass and GPS for Hunters

By Hunters Guide. Checked against Natural Resources Canada and Parks Canada sources on September 22, 2026.

Navigation in the bush comes down to four skills: reading terrain off a topographic map, setting declination on your compass, walking a bearing you trust, and marking the spots you will need to find again.

None of it's difficult. It's just unfamiliar, and unfamiliar things fall apart at dusk when you are a kilometre off your line.

The three norths, and why declination matters

A map has three norths. True north is the geographic pole. Magnetic north is where your needle points. Grid north is the way the map grid runs. Natural Resources Canada draws the distinction that matters: "A compass lines up with the horizontal component of the magnetic field in a direction called magnetic north."

The gap between the two has a name. "The angle between magnetic north and true north is called magnetic declination." It isn't one number for the country, it differs enormously depending on where in Canada you're standing, and it doesn't sit still, because "The secular variation of the magnetic field causes declination to change with time. Changes in declination can be quite large." How fast it drifts depends on where you are, too.

So look up the current figure for your ground from NRCan before the season and set it on the compass. Get it wrong and the compass still looks confident while it walks you off course. One degree of error puts you seventeen metres wide after a kilometre. Ten degrees puts you in the wrong drainage.

How to take and walk a bearing

A bearing is a direction stated as an angle in degrees clockwise from north. Taking one means measuring that angle from where you are to where you want to be.

1. Off the map. Lay the compass edge along the line to your destination, turn the housing until its north lines sit parallel with the map's north, and read the number.
2. Or off the ground. Point the compass at the feature and turn the housing until the needle boxes itself.
3. Sight along the bearing and pick a solid object on that line, forty metres out.
4. Put the compass away and walk to it.
5. Sight the next one, and repeat.

Walking it is where people fail. Nobody walks a straight line through timber while staring at a needle, so don't try. Leapfrog object to object like that and your line survives every deadfall you detour around.

The back bearing, and how it gets you home

A back bearing is the exact reverse of the bearing you walked, 180 degrees opposite. It is how you retrace your own line to the truck. Add 180 if your bearing was under 180. Subtract 180 if it was over.

So write the outbound number down when you take it. A number recalled at dusk is one you invented.

Why would you aim off on purpose?

Aiming off means deliberately setting your bearing to one side of a small target. When you reach the line it sits on, you already know which way to turn. Walk a perfect bearing at a culvert two kilometres out and you arrive near it with no idea whether it's left or right. Aim twenty degrees left and you arrive knowing to turn right.

Two related ideas do most of the work in real country. A handrail is a long feature you travel alongside instead of navigating: a creek, a cutline, a ridge spine. A catch feature lies across your route and tells you to stop: a road, a river, a powerline.

Pick the catch feature sitting behind your truck before you walk in. Then the walk out has a backstop and overshooting stops being possible.

What a topographic map actually shows you

A topographic map shows the shape of the ground using contour lines. Those lines join points of equal elevation, and they let you picture a hillside off a flat sheet. Natural Resources Canada puts the skill simply: use contour lines to work out elevation.

Spacing tells you most of it. "The closer together the lines are, the steeper the slope." Lines crowded into a dark band mean a face. Lines drifting apart mean a bench. NRCan adds that "contour numbers are often positioned differently, since they indicate the direction of elevation by always reading (pointing) uphill."

Then do the thing that makes a map useful: pick one feature off it you can go and stand in. Contours bending upstream in a tight V is a drainage. A spine with ground falling away either side is a ridge. Find it on paper, then on the hillside, and the map stops being an abstraction.

Fixing your position from two landmarks

Triangulation is working out where you are from features you can both see and identify on the map. Take a bearing to each, then draw those lines until they cross. Two will do.

Shoot a bearing to a distinct peak, tower or point of land. Convert it to a back bearing, then draw that line from the feature across the map.

Do the same with a second feature, well off to the side rather than in line with the first. Where the lines cross is you, near enough. A third turns the crossing into a small triangle and tells you how much to trust it.

Is a GPS enough, or do you still need paper?

A GPS unit or a phone is a convenience that makes everything faster. A map and compass are the backup that still works when the convenience quits. Cold is the reason: batteries lose capacity fast below freezing, so a phone that lasted all day in October dies by ten in November.

Parks Canada says both halves of it: "For backcountry hikes, bring navigation tools like a map, compass and GPS and make sure you know how to use them!" and "Cell service is limited in many places, so do not solely rely on your phone's GPS!"

So carry the electronics and use them. Also carry paper in a bag, a compass with no batteries in it, spare cells kept warm against your body, and a trip plan left with somebody, as our wilderness survival guide sets out.

What to mark before you start tracking

Two positions are worth saving on every hunt: where you parked, and where the animal was standing when you shot. Mark the truck before you walk away from it.

The second matters more than people expect. Once an animal runs you'll walk to where you think it stood, and you'll be wrong, because everything looks different from fifty metres closer. Mark the shot site and flag it before you take a step, and mark first blood too. Then a dead trail sends you back to a known point instead of a guess, which is the method in shot placement and tracking.

Why navigation is a hunter education topic, not a hiking one

Hunting navigation is route finding for people who leave the trail on purpose, and that one difference changes everything. A hiker follows a corridor somebody else cut and signed.

You do the opposite. You walk in before dawn. You cut away from the road, because that is where the animals are. Then an animal picks your route for two hours, through country you have never seen. You come out heavy and tired, often after dark. Every one of those loses your line, and they stack.

How do you practise this before you need it?

Practice means running the whole sequence somewhere you can't get into trouble, because nobody learns to plot a back bearing while cold and rattled. Take a map of a woodlot near home. Pick a hilltop you can see from the truck. Take the bearing and walk it. Then walk the back bearing home and see where you land.

Then make it harder. Do it once in the dark, once in the rain with gloves on. Three or four afternoons and it is yours for good.

Questions about map, compass and GPS navigation

What do closely spaced contour lines mean?

Steep ground. Natural Resources Canada puts it plainly: the closer together the lines are, the steeper the slope. Widely spaced lines are gentle country, and a band of lines packed tight is a face you probably do not want to drag an animal up.

What is magnetic declination?

Natural Resources Canada defines it as the angle between magnetic north and true north. Your compass needle lines up with the magnetic field, not with the geographic pole, so the two directions disagree by an amount that depends on where you are standing.

Does declination change over time?

Yes, and Natural Resources Canada says the changes can be quite large. The rate differs across the country too. Look up the current figure for the ground you hunt rather than trusting a number printed on an older map or remembered from a previous season.

How do you walk a straight bearing in thick bush?

You do not stare at the needle. Sight along the bearing, pick something solid on that line such as a leaning snag or a pale rock, walk to it without looking at the compass, then sight the next object. Short hops on a true line beat one long wander.

Is a GPS enough on its own?

No. A GPS or a phone is a convenience, and cold batteries die fast. Parks Canada advises carrying a map, compass and GPS for backcountry travel and knowing how to use them, and warns that cell service is limited in many places.