The map store shut down and Quebec's hunters all moved: how NordQuest caught them

A dozen-plus-person IT company in Saguenay built a French hunting-map app. Four months after launch it became the default place for Quebec hunters to download official hunting-zone maps, and it cracked the top ten of Canada's Google Play Maps category. It didn't win by beating US giants on features. It caught a legacy platform shutting down: Avenza, where these maps lived, stopped updating, and the hunters' federation, the provincial reserves, and 63 zecs all moved their maps here together. Below: how it caught them, where the money comes from, and whether the window is still open outside Quebec.

Sep 11, a notice from Sépaq

On Sep 11, 2026, Sépaq, Quebec's provincial outdoor agency, posted a notice on its website titled "Using electronic maps on Sépaq land: what you need to know." The first paragraph said the company behind Avenza Maps had announced it would no longer add new maps and would stop updating its map library. The next subheading, "Moving to NordQuest, a Quebec-made app," said the official maps were already on it, no paid subscription needed, just sign up for an account. It linked directly to the App Store and Google Play.

Sépaq manages Quebec's wildlife reserves, and it publishes the hunting maps for large and small game. Before entering a reserve, hunters had to download these maps to their phones, since deep in the forest there's no signal. From that day on, the place to download them changed.

The same day, the hunting Facebook page "Bête de Chasse" posted that NordQuest was getting 1,000 downloads a day that week. Three days earlier, on Sep 8, Réseau Zec, which manages 63 hunting zecs (Quebec's publicly managed hunting zones), also added its official maps to NordQuest's library for free download. Outdoor chain Ecotone posted a blog the same day titled "NordQuest, the new app replacing Avenza," saying staff in stores could help you install it. Two weeks later, moose season opened.

What it is

NordQuest is a map app for Quebec hunters. The first line of its store page reads "A map tool built for Quebec hunters and the realities of this land." It downloads maps and your hunting zones for offline use. It layers the provincial forestry ministry's (MRNF) tree species, forest disturbance, and moisture maps to find where moose might be. It calculates wind direction from terrain (hunters care most about upwind and downwind). Buddies in the same zone can share locations and chat. Built in are moose calls, regulations by species and weapon, and season dates. Mostly French, with English too.

It was built by Saguenay's Pulsar Informatique. According to Radio-Canada's June 30 report, about a dozen people worked on it for over a year, with close to CA$500k invested, the company's largest project to date.

Monetization is free plus Pro: Pro costs CA$79.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial. Official maps, base maps, and GPS tracks are free; smart layers, dynamic wind, and team collaboration require Pro. The free version has ads.

How far it grew

A few numbers to read correctly. First, the bar to reach #8 on the Top Grossing chart is low: on the same chart, #9 BRMB Maps has only 78k installs, and #15 Bruce Trail App has only 18k. So it shows that people in Canada are paying for annual subscriptions every day, not that the scale is big. Second, most of the volume is on iPhone: iOS has nearly 1,200 ratings, the Play rating count isn't showing yet, and iOS downloads are probably several times Play's (inference). Third, the peak is over: Play now sees about 80–100 installs a day, a fall-off after moose season ended; November is white-tailed deer season, so there's still a bit of tail left.

Why it: one platform shut down, and a hunting federation swapped in a new app

First, the federation. The day NordQuest launched on Jun 29, the Fédération des chasseurs et pêcheurs du Québec (FédéCP) announced it as its official app, replacing its own Zone Chasse 2.0. Zone Chasse had regulations, seasons and zones, but no maps; existing users get the original features in NordQuest for free. Members get Pro at 75% off, with the discount code in the member wallet. 79.99 at 75% off comes to 59.99, the same as the in-app price on Play, so a good share of paid conversions probably come through the membership route (inference). Radio-Canada and Saguenay regional papers covered it.

Then Avenza shut down. Avenza Maps is a general PDF map reader with a map store, where parks, trail associations and forestry offices publish official maps; FédéCP's own blog used to recommend hunters use it for Sépaq and zec maps. In 2026 April, Avenza was merged into GIS software maker Blue Marble, after which the map store stopped accepting new publishers and stopped letting existing ones update maps, and the free version could no longer import your own maps. Quebec's agencies had the maps but nowhere to publish them. NordQuest launched in June with a local team and federation backing, and caught them.

Finally, the season. Quebec has roughly 300k hunters, and moose season runs 9–October. The map migration and the season opening landed in the same week, which produced "1,000 downloads a day."

The App Store reviews show the migrating users directly:

"I was a heavy Avenza user and switched to NordQuest. WOW!" (5 stars, 10-22) "Compared to Avenza, the detail on the hunting-zone trails is a bit thinner, but it has potential." (3 stars, 10-10) "Finally a complete one. The best in Quebec." (5 stars, 10-13) "Made by Quebec hunters, you can tell." (5 stars, 11-02)

Few bad reviews, and they cluster on two points: price, "the subscription is too expensive, this app should be a one-time purchase, 20 dollars max" (2 stars, 8-04); and less detail than Avenza, "PDF maps go blurry when you zoom in, useless in the bush" (2 stars, 8-21).

Where users come from

Almost all of it comes from channels that already existed. I saw no sign of paid acquisition.

• Institutions: FédéCP sent its Zone Chasse users over; the Sépaq and Réseau Zec websites and map libraries point their download links to it; several wildlife reserves and private hunting grounds (pourvoiries) have also connected.
• Local media: Radio-Canada regional, Saguenay newspapers and press releases all ran in launch week.
• People in the hunting scene: they signed two Quebec hunting creators as ambassadors, one being "L'Homme Panache" Réal Langlois (his moose call recordings are included in Pro), and the other "Prise du jour"; they got a spot on the hunting podcast "100% Chasse Pêche" and launched a podcast of their own; and at launch they ran giveaways with a trail camera brand.
• Offline: they sponsored the Expo Nature Chicoutimi outdoor show through 2028; Ecotone stores help people get set up.
• Carriers: the website has a page showing users how to enable Rogers' satellite eSIM so they can message and check location where there's no signal. I don't know whether there's a revenue share.

You can't find it on TikTok, nobody talks about it on X, and no English tech outlet has covered it. It only spreads within Quebec's French-speaking hunting circles.

Who it's competing with

On features, onX is stronger and BorealMaps is cheaper. What NordQuest has that nobody else does is a set of licenses: FédéCP, Sépaq, Réseau Zec, private hunting grounds. Wherever those agencies' official maps are, hunters go.

Outside Quebec, the door is still open

NordQuest's position in Quebec can't be copied: the federation will only have one official app, and Sépaq and the zecs won't move again. The company itself has said it plans to add fishing next and expand to other Canadian provinces.

But what made it take off isn't unique to Quebec. After Avenza stopped updating, the agencies publishing maps on it are all over North America: the NY-NJ Trail Conference and the Superior Hiking Trail Association both posted notices in late April saying they could no longer update their maps; people on GIS forums and Reddit are asking for "Avenza alternatives"; and some posts say US Forest Service motor-vehicle road maps were affected too (unverified). These organizations all hold official maps and have users who need to download them every year, and they are now looking for a new home.

If it were you

Verdict (B): worth a shot, but this is a business where you "sign institutions first, build the app second." Quebec is taken. What's worth doing is running NordQuest's playbook in another place no one has picked up: one province, one state, a national park system, a long-distance trail, or a hunting association. The window was opened by the one-time event of Avenza shutting down, and whoever signs the institutions first gets those users.

Who it suits: people who live locally, speak the local language, and hunt or hike themselves, and can get meetings with associations and park managers; someone on the team who has built offline maps (tile downloads, georeferenced PDF overlays).

Who it doesn't suit: anyone counting on organic App Store traffic (that category's organic traffic belongs to big players like onX and Gaia); anyone who just wants a generic "Avenza replacement" (BorealMaps is already doing that, and without institutional backing you can only compete on price); anyone who can't handle being busy only two or three months a year.

How to do it: first list the organizations that published maps on Avenza and now say they can't update them, then approach them one by one: you host and publish their official maps for free, in exchange for them pointing their website and notices to your download links. On product, the first version only needs offline download of official maps with GPS overlay done solidly; put the paid tier on what's really useful, which is wind and timber-cover layers for hunting and tracks and group location for hiking. If you land a trade association, copy FédéCP's move: discount for members, with the code placed in the association's own member channels.

How to get users: almost entirely through partners' websites, notices and member newsletters, plus one round of local media, and one or two familiar faces in the scene as ambassadors. No paid acquisition needed at first; once institutions are signed and before the season opens, top up in local hunting or hiking Facebook groups.

When to move: before the spring hiking season in 2027 and September hunting opening. Avenza has been frozen for half a year, institutions won't wait forever, and NordQuest is already moving into other provinces.

Signs you've misread it: ① several of the institutions you approach say they've already picked a platform or are going back to building their own web maps; ② Avenza or Blue Marble resumes updates to the map store; ③ NordQuest adds fewer than a hundred or two new Play installs a week next spring, meaning Quebec's wave was a one-off migration, not a business that keeps collecting annual subscriptions.