If you've ever ventured off the beaten path, searched for a hidden gem of a fishing hole or sought out new places to make tracks with your snowmobile, chances are you've checked out one of the many Backroad Mapbooks editions.
With its home office in Coquitlam, the successful map book company is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with plans for new digital mapping products to add to its arsenal - a testament to how far the company has come in the past two decades.
"The first book, when we look at it now, we kind of laugh because it was so rudimentary," said Russell Mussio, president and co-founder of Backroad Mapbooks.
Russell and his brother, Wesley Mussio, grew up in Trail as avid outdoors enthusiasts. When they moved down to the coast to attend UBC, they were looking for spots to go hiking, hunting and fishing, and found they had to collect several different books and maps for each activity.
"We put two and two together and figured it was kind of crazy to have all these different maps and books... and we said, 'Why doesn't somebody just put them all in one book?'"
Russell focused his thesis studies on creating a comprehensive business plan to create the book and roped a master's degree student into teaching them the ins and outs of map-making, with help from UBC's map library.
Wesley, a forestry student at the time, was able to gain access to forestry company maps and from there the brothers canvassed various clubs and recreational groups to bring all the information together.
Since that first edition (3,000 copies were printed) the brothers have sold more than one million copies, and recently released the third edition of the Backroad Mapbook: Vancouver Coast and Mountains, which Mussio said remains one of their top three titles (the other two focus on Vancouver Island and the Thompson/Okanagan regions).
"In B.C. we've been pretty lucky... people seem to live and breathe the outdoors here," Russell said, noting the company offers about 30 active titles spanning the country, as well as a number of spin-off products that would bring the count of Backroads titles into the thousands.
Of course, it's no longer the Mussio brothers exploring each trail, park and logging road.
These days, Russell, a Kelowna resident, oversees a team of researchers, writers and mapping professionals for each area covered in the various books.
He's also staying busy with the development of the company's new web and mobile apps - the Backroads Mapbooks Navigator - which are hoped to be ready in time to celebrate the 20th anniversary. The smartphone apps will link with web-based maps containing Backroads' extensive network of roads, trails and points of interest.
Visit www.backroadsmapbooks.com for more information.
