Camp Cachalot Alumni Association Forums

[Dennis Wilkinson]

No, I'm not saying that Cachalot is gone. Pay attention to the spelling!

Every map of the Cachalot area since 1974 has contained our camp's name misspelled as "Camp Chacalot". I've been trying, off-and-on, for at least the last 15 to get it corrected. Until recently, I had been doing this by sending US Mail to the United Stated Geological Survey, but within the last year, their web site has added a link for error reporting, and I figured I'd give it a go.

Lo and behold! I get a response from an actual USGS employee, double-checking the spelling.

That's right -- as of today, the USGS "Geographic Names Information System" now contains the name "Cachalot Scout Reservation" for the Cachalot area! Since many other mapping, GIS, and GPS companies subscribe to the USGS data, I'm hoping the corrected name will trickle out to other maps in the near future. The "Camp Chacalot" misspelling will remain in the database as a "variant", just so that folks looking at old maps can still search on it if they need to.

If you're obsessive-compulsive like me , and want to have a look, go to:

http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq

and search for Cachalot either by name, or by its feature ID, which is 614965. (You have to actually click the "Send Query" button for the page to work, just hitting Enter won't cut it for some reason.)

Woohoo!
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Dennis
Minister of Propaganda, Webmaestro, and Chief Bottle Washer

"Everything that passes unattempted is impossible." - Stephen R. Donaldson

[Dave G]

I have always thought that was funny. The mis-spelling reminds me of a cereal....Count Chacalot.
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Do or do not there is no try.... Yoda