Northwind (1951) -- Discussion: Questions, Comments and Coordination

[Michael]

[ggordon]

July is complete.

[Randi]

[Michael]

[Hanibal94]

March is complete too. Nothing special.
On to April.

[Randi]

[Michael]

[Hanibal94]

April done and uploaded. There was some travel around Puget Sound - with a huge number of locations and course changes mentioned!

[Randi]

Hopefully that will keep Michael out of mischief

[Michael]

[Hanibal94]

May done. They were in Seattle and did nothing.
Just one month left for me!

[Michael]

[Hanibal94]

Got some tricky place names while going to Alaska the inside way *groan*:

On this page, second-to-last line, the first place looks like "Susan Rock Lighthouse":
https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 6_0099.JPG

And on this one, second line from the top, it looks like "Asher/Ashen Point Light":
https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 6_0101.JPG

In each case, I could not work out if this is correct or if it should be something else, even after looking at the Reference List and at maps.

[ggordon]

On this page, second-to-last line, the first place looks like "Susan Rock Lighthouse":
https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 6_0099.JPG

There is a Susan Rock at about the right location.
https://www.geonames.org/6159955/susan-rock.html

[ggordon]

And on this one, second line from the top, it looks like "Asher/Ashen Point Light":
https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 6_0101.JPG

Asher Point appears to be at about the right location for this one.
https://www.geonames.org/5887549/asher-point.html

[Michael]

You're correct and you get 100 points for reading scrawl:

Susan Rock 52.283333, -128.5 http://www4.rncan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique/JCCRX

Asher Point 53.0875 -128.556667 http://www4.rncan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique/JCLYM

I'll send these along to Matteo. I've been collecting a few with the Burton Island 1955 Jul-Dec deck logs.

I've found the best way to find these sorts of places, and I don't suggest you bother unless you want the programming challenge, is to download the data from the Canadian Natural Resources official place names database. I do it by province, and I remove places that are far from the coast. Then I use a script that pulls out places near a given point. It also generates a KML file so I can see each point on a map. I can click on one of the icons and see the details, such as name, location and ID. I do the same with Geonames, dumping place name data for states or countries. The setting up required a bit of work, but the searches are very very fast. The handy thing is that I can search for parts of a name, or something like point or rock, etc with kml_search which reads the KML file. If the region is a province, my geonames script reads the official Canadian data for the given province, otherwise it searches the Geonames data for the selected state or country. There are so many names, I think I have over 14,000,000 from Geonames, that the searches are much faster if the data are separated into smaller chunks.

I can look in the database for a given string. If one letter is capitalized, I search the big database for the province, state or country, otherwise I search Matteo's database. IF they draw a blank, I use the near or geonames scripts.

Code: Select all

$ bc Her point

Searching Canadian Geographic Database for BC

Lat         Long          Name                                CGN_ID         Prov
52.968611 , -132.272778   Archer Point                        JCPHJ          BC
53.0875   , -128.556667   Asher Point                         JCLYM          BC
49.419722 , -126.068333   Belcher Point                       JAGCJ          BC
...
...
50.874722 , -127.906111   Jepther Point                       JBUVG          BC
48.674167 , -123.409722   Kingfisher Point                    JAIFR          BC
48.931389 , -123.535      Panther Point                       JBBHE          BC

Or I can look for all the places near a point, in this case near Redcliff Point, which is mentioned in the log.

Code: Select all

$ geonames bc 53.157, -128.638 15
Run Alt-1
$ kml_search point
X2 41:    ,     Centre Point
X2 99:    ,     Asher Point
X2 109:   ,     Baudre Point
...
...
X2 749:   ,     Redcliff Point
X2 799:   ,     Swanson Point
$ kml_search 99
                <Placemark>
                        <styleUrl>#MyStyle</styleUrl>
                        <name>Asher Point</name>
                        <description>1
<br>JCLYM
<br>53.0875, -128.556667</br></br></description>
                        <Point>
                                <coordinates>-128.556667,53.0875</coordinates>
$

Usually I just use the script near that checks Matteo's database. And, if that pulls up nothing, I use the geonames script.

Code: Select all

$ near 53.157, -128.638 15

Searching All_OW_Places.tab

Canada              , Aaltanhash Inlet         , 53.129, -128.518,
Canada              , Baudre Point             , 53.086, -128.535,
Canada              , Butedale                 ,  53.16, -128.695,
...
...
Canada              , Swanson Point            , 53.013, -128.52,
Canada              , Trivett Point            , 53.308, -129.037,
Canada              , Work Island              , 53.174, -128.666,

[ggordon]

I usually just look for other points earlier or later in the log that I can find on a map and then use the navigation entries to get a rough idea of where to look for something similar to what the log keeper scrawled.

With the great resource that Matteo is maintaining, there aren't all that many that are a challenge. So it's not worth all the trouble to me that you're putting in. However, with all the work you do plotting the data, I can see where it was worth the effort for you.

[ggordon]

This entry was logged on August 17:

1415 Boat #6 to Cape Spencer to survey new site for Cape Spencer Light.

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 7_0079.JPG

So the Cape Spencer Light may be in a different location on current maps than it was back then. However, for our purposes it's probably not significant.

[Michael]

Wikipedia makes no mention of a move. We could check locations on charts before and after 1951, but I suspect it's in much the same place.

[Michael]

I usually just look for other points earlier or later in the log that I can find on a map and then use the navigation entries to get a rough idea of where to look for something similar to what the log keeper scrawled.

With the great resource that Matteo is maintaining, there aren't all that many that are a challenge. So it's not worth all the trouble to me that you're putting in. However, with all the work you do plotting the data, I can see where it was worth the effort for you.

That's how I started, way back when the USS Concord was patrolling the waters in the Far East. Then I wrote a small script to calculate where they were from a known point using their course and distance travelled. And the scripts became bigger, more numerous and much more sophisticated until it got me where I am today. Ah, the life of a transcriber is so much simpler.

Unless you're doing what I am, there's really no point doing what I did. But, I know that Chris enjoys a programming challenge.