Digitizing Historical and Field Research Documents

Fisheries and Oceans Canada uses an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system to digitize handwritten field notes and historical documents. The system extracts characters from paper-based salmon observations and stream inspection logs into structured digital formats, making scientific data more accessible and easier to analyze. This tool is currently in production and used by Government of Canada employees. The system does not process personal information, focusing instead on scientific observations and research data that spans from ~100 year old historical records to present-day field notes.