Sources & terms
Cosmic's Camp Map is built from open government data, OpenStreetMap, and speed tests run by the people who use it. This page lists every source, the licence it is used under, and the terms you accept by using the map.
Terms of use
This map is a planning aid, not a legal or safety authority. Land status comes from the Province's parcel records (land with no title record is shown as provincial Crown land) and is not a survey: posted signs, gates, closures, fire bans and the instructions of land managers and First Nations always take precedence. Cell coverage and speeds are estimates and other people's measurements; they are no guarantee you will have signal. Logging activity reflects permits on file, not where trucks are today.
You are responsible for your own safety and for checking current conditions before and during a trip. The map is provided as is, without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law the author accepts no liability for loss, injury or damage arising from its use.
Nothing here implies endorsement by the Province of British Columbia, the Government of Canada, OpenStreetMap or any data provider.
The Backcountry Pass
Everything you can see online is free. The Backcountry Pass unlocks saving the whole map to your device for use without signal, and the full scouting list of remote, connected spots. It comes two ways: CA$49 once for life, or CA$5 a month, cancelled any time from the receipt Stripe emails you. Payment is handled by Stripe; this site never sees your card.
There are no accounts or passwords. After paying you are returned to the map with the pass active on that device. The Layers panel can copy an unlock link for another device, and "Already have a pass?" in the same panel emails a fresh unlock link to the address you paid with, so nothing is ever lost. A monthly pass checks in with Stripe while you are online and stops when the subscription does.
Refunds: if the offline map does not work on your device, email within 14 days of purchase for a full refund. Prices include no tax; applicable taxes are added at checkout where required.
Privacy
Visits are counted with Umami, a cookieless analytics service that stores no personal data and needs no consent banner; it records page views and a few product events (such as "offline save started"), never locations or emails.
The map runs in your browser and stores its offline copy, settings, GPX tracks and your pass on your device only. When a pass is activated, the server keeps the Stripe checkout id and the email Stripe reports for it, so a lost pass can be restored; nothing else. If you run Test my signal here, one anonymous reading is sent to the map's server: the rounded position (about 100 m), the day, download and upload speeds, latency and the carrier you picked. No account, name, IP address or device identifier is stored with it. Readings are shared with everyone through the map.
Data sources and licences
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Land status: titled parcels and their owner type | Province of British Columbia, ParcelMap BC Parcel Fabric (BC Geographic Warehouse) | Open Government Licence – British Columbia. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia. |
| Untitled provincial Crown land (land with no parcel) | Province outline from Natural Earth | Public domain |
| Parks and protected areas, municipalities, tree farm licences, Crown tenures, recreation sites and polygons, forest tenure road segments, cut blocks (active, planned and recent harvest) | Province of British Columbia, BC Geographic Warehouse | Open Government Licence – British Columbia |
| Alberta: Green Area / White Area, First Nations reserves and Métis settlements, Public Land Recreation Areas, Public Lands Camping Pass and Kananaskis Conservation Pass areas, Public Land Use Zones | Government of Alberta | Open Government Licence – Alberta |
| Alberta parks and protected areas | Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database | Open Government Licence – Canada |
| Indian reserves, national parks | Natural Resources Canada, Canada Lands Administrative Boundaries | Open Government Licence – Canada |
| Cell sites (towers) | Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Spectrum Licence Site Data | Open Government Licence – Canada |
| LTE and 5G coverage (2024) | Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, 2024; Natural Resources Canada, 2025 (Atlas of Canada, Wireless Data Network) | Open Government Licence – Canada |
| Estimated signal (line of sight) | Computed by this map from the cell sites above and the terrain model below | Derived work; see those sources |
| Measured mobile speed | Speed tests run by users of this map (Test my signal here), averaged per 600 m tile | Community data, no third-party licence. Ookla® Open Data was used before October 2026 and has been removed because its CC BY-NC-SA licence does not permit commercial use. |
| Terrain: contours, hillshade, elevations | Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Digital Elevation Model, via Mapzen/Tilezen terrain tiles on AWS | Open Government Licence – Canada; Tilezen attribution |
| Basemap (roads, water, labels) | Protomaps extract of OpenStreetMap, self-hosted | © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL |
| Road surface (gravel, rough, unpaved tracks), trails, parking lots and trailheads | OpenStreetMap, via Geofabrik extracts | © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. These layers and the scouting list's access and parking fields are derived databases offered under the ODbL; they ship in their own archive (osm-*.pmtiles). |
| Satellite imagery (when enabled) | Esri World Imagery | Powered by Esri. Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community. Online only; never stored offline or in the pass. |
| Place names (search, spot names) | Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Geographical Names | Open Government Licence – Canada |
| Wildfires (live): satellite hotspots from the last 24 hours and estimated fire perimeters | Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (hotspots from NASA FIRMS MODIS/VIIRS and other satellites) | Open Government Licence – Canada; NASA data is free of restrictions |
| Wildfires (live): US incidents and perimeters | National Interagency Fire Center, Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services (WFIGS) | Public domain (US government work) |
| Washington: public land and its manager (national forest, BLM, state trust land, parks, refuges, tribal land), wilderness areas | U.S. Geological Survey Gap Analysis Project, Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 4.1 | Public domain (US government work) |
| Washington: campgrounds and dispersed camping areas | USDA Forest Service, Recreation Opportunities | Public domain (US government work) |
| Washington: carrier LTE coverage (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, UScellular) | Federal Communications Commission, Broadband Data Collection, mobile broadband coverage as filed by each carrier | Public domain (US government work) |
| Washington: place names | U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System | Public domain (US government work) |
| Field reports (road, gate and spot conditions) | Check-ins from people using this map: a place, a day, a condition from a fixed list and an optional vehicle type. No account, no free text, no IP address stored; shown for 120 days | Community data, free to use with this map |
| Services (water, sani-dumps, toilets, showers, fuel, propane, laundry, groceries, trash) | OpenStreetMap, via Geofabrik extracts | © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL (in the separate OpenStreetMap archive) |
Crown land camping rule: Land Act Permissions Policy, 14 consecutive days. Rec site fees and closures: Recreation Sites and Trails BC. Fire bans and campfire restrictions are not copied into this map; it links to BC Wildfire Service and Alberta Fire Bans. Alberta land status is the Green Area / White Area boundary, not parcel ownership: White Area land is mostly private. Province data published as "Access Only" (not open-licensed) is not used.
Contact
Found an error in the data, or a licence concern? Write to brendon.d.campbell@gmail.com. Built by Brendon in Victoria, BC. Part of Cosmic Otter.