Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline (Canada) Lying With Maps

We’ve all heard of the popular geoTech book titled “How to Lie With Maps“… well, it seems there’s a real-life scenario playing out in B.C, Canada involving the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project and the effort of planners to manipulate and/or deceive the public by “Lying” with maps. Note, I discovered this via a Canadian academic discussion list accusing the company of this practice.

The project would send bitumen by pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to Kitimat, where it would be loaded onto tankers for export to Asia.

Enbridge has developed a beautiful 3D fly-over video that shows some awesome 3D imagery along a proposed route for this mega project. The problem though is that in one particularly sensitive area of Douglas Channel (See Google map) along the coast the maps/imagery have  conveniently been generalized and islands (about 1,000 square KM)  that dot the coast have been removed – this makes the proposed route appear much safer that what is the reality. Check out the impressive video of the proposed pipeline route HERE. A graphic showing the actual coastline is shown below (Source: Eaves.ca). An amazing map story and a big plus for 3D visualization, however, this could be a PR nightmare for Enbridge!

See also this story on Eaves.ca & somofus.org & The Calgary Herald

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Glenn is a geographer and a GIS professional with over 20 years experience in the industry. He's the co-founder of GISuser and several other technology web publications.