A paper to be presented at a scientific conference in London this week could have a profound impact on the future of orienteering. "Predictions of future magnetic field reversals" by Professors Howard Orchard and Alberto Ximenes of the Institute for Applied Physical Research (IAPR) presents the results of a detailed study of movements of the earth's magnetic poles, and uses these observations to predict that a reversal of the magnetic field is imminent. They claim that the north magnetic pole could move from its current position in northern Canada to a new location in Antarctica over a period as short as one year. The impact on the sport of orienteering, where competitors rely on maps aligned to magnetic north, could be severe.

After the popularity of the Maprunner Guide to IOF Control Descriptions, you can now download three more items to help with your orienteering. These are guides to orienteering map symbols. Click on the images to see a full-size version. The files are jpg images that are designed for printing at A4 size. If you are having trouble then try right clicking and select "Save Link As...." to copy the file to your computer first.

The ISOM 2000 Map Symbols are those used for normal orienteering maps, generally at 1:10,000 or 1:15,000.

The BOF School Map Symbols are those used for school orienteering maps in Great Britain.

Please feel free to distribute these files unchanged or print them out for non-commercial use. Please contact me to discuss any other usage.

(This article was written by Ian Gilliver and is reproduced from Issue 56 of Lokation, the London Orienteering Klubb newsletter.)  

LOK achieved a world first at Chislehurst Caves on the evening of Saturday 19 September 1987: the world's first day-time night orienteering event, or more simply, the world's first underground orienteering event. One hundred and one competitors accepted this unique navigational challenge and some twenty more pursued the less taxing wayfarers course.

The intrepid navigators completed a testing course some 2.5km in length and comprising 22 controls. Winner by a clear minute was Jim Mallinson in little over 25 minutes - not bad for a course with seven sets of master maps. The slowest competitor took more than four times that long.

The caves were formed by human excavation of a chalky hillside. The terrain was essentially flat, cool and gloomy. There were some similarities to a street event, except the streets had no names. Imagine dark grey-walled terraces of parallel or near parallel streets, crossed nearly at right angles with more of the same to form small blocks of buildings, each looking the same as the next. The surface of the streets is uneven, possessing a cobbled quality. Occasionally you would clamber over a pile of earth, obstructing progress down the street, and occasionally you would see a disused toilet block. These latter date from the Second World War when the caves were used as an underground shelter. One competitor showed Hazel Blackstone the bay where as an evacuee he had slept more than 40 years earlier.

(From Lokation 108 in December 1996.)

Honeymoon day one, and a chance to test the large sports bags that LOK gave us as a wedding present. (Thanks to everyone who contributed: we decided we'd leave the wine at home, which just about gave us room for O-kit for two weeks.) The flight to Boston passed slowly enough for me to plan most of the Holmbury badge event, and we managed to get about one hundred miles north before finding a motel.

Day two was a day for culture. We stopped at Fort Ticonderoga to discover how the Americans had whopped the Brits during the War of Independence. Then on north west into the Adirondack mountains, and a visit to Lake Placid. We did the tour of the Olympic ski jumping complex, complete with lunatic people out dry slope ski jumping. The highlight of Helen's trip came when she spotted that Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards was one of the people training with the American team. We have a blurred photo of the back of his head to prove it. And then the final drive into Canada, through Ottawa and on to Wakefield, about twenty miles north of the capital.  We arrived at the event centre just in time to miss the opening ceremony.