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The Dominion Land Survey (DLS; french: links=no, arpentage des terres fédérales, ATF) is the method used to divide most of
Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada†...
into one-square-mile (2.6 km2) sections for agricultural and other purposes. It is based on the layout of the
Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...
used in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, but has several differences. The DLS is the dominant
survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...
method in the
Prairie provinces The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
, and it is also used in
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
along the Railway Belt (near the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway), and in the
Peace River Block The Peace River Block is an area of land located in northeastern British Columbia, in the Peace River Country. In exchange for building a rail line across Canada to British Columbia, the Canadian Pacific Railway was given the Railway Belt, of l ...
in the northeast of the province. (Although British Columbia entered
Confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...
with control over its own lands, unlike the Northwest Territories and the Prairie provinces, British Columbia transferred these lands to the federal Government as a condition of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The federal government then surveyed these areas under the DLS.)''Crown Lands: A History of Survey Systems''
, by W.A. Taylor, B.C.L.S., 1975. 5th Reprint, 2004. Registries and Titles Department, Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management. Victoria, British Columbia.


History

The survey was begun in 1871, shortly after Manitoba and the North-West Territories became part of Canada, following the purchase of
Rupert's Land Rupert's Land (french: Terre de Rupert), or Prince Rupert's Land (french: Terre du Prince Rupert, link=no), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin; this was further extended from Rupert's Land t ...
from the Hudson's Bay Company. Covering about , the survey system and its terminology are deeply ingrained in the rural culture of the Prairies. The DLS is the world's largest survey grid laid down in a single integrated system. The first formal survey done in western Canada was by
Peter Fidler Peter Fidler (16 August 1769 – 17 December 1822) was a British surveyor, map-maker, fur trader and explorer who had a long career in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in what later became Canada. He was born in Bolsover, Derbyshir ...
in 1813. The inspiration for the Dominion Land Survey System was the plan for Manitoba (and later Saskatchewan and Alberta) to be agricultural economies. With a large number of European settlers arriving, Manitoba was undergoing a large change so grasslands and parklands were surveyed, settled, and farmed.Hanuta, Irene. "A dominion land survey map of the Red River Valley." Manitoba History 58 (2008): 23+.. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.), Gale World History In Context The Dominion Land Survey system was developed because the farm name and field position descriptions used in northern Europe were not organized or flexible enough, and the township and concession system used in eastern Canada was not satisfactory. The first meridian was chosen at 97°27′28.4″ west longitude and was established in 1869. Another six meridians were established after. A number of places are excluded from the survey system: these include federal lands such as First Nation reserves, federal parks, and air weapon ranges. The surveys do not encroach on reserves because that land was established before the surveys began. When the Hudson's Bay Company relinquished its title to the Dominion on July 15, 1870, via the
Deed of Surrender The Deed of Surrender or Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory Order is an 1870 British order in council that transferred ownership of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) to the newly created Domi ...
, it received Section 8 and all of Section 26 excluding the northeast quarter. These lands were gradually sold by the company and in 1984 they donated the remaining to the Saskatchewan Wildlife Association. The surveying of western Canada was divided into five basic surveys. Each survey's layout was slightly different from the others. The first survey began in 1871 and ended in 1879 and covers some of southern Manitoba and a little of Saskatchewan. The second and smallest survey, in 1880, was used in only small areas of Saskatchewan. This system differs from the first survey because rather than running section lines parallel to the eastern boundary they run true north–south. The largest and most important of these surveys was the third, which covers more land than all the others surveys put together. This survey began in 1881. That method of surveying is still used in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The fourth and fifth surveys were used only in some townships in British Columbia. The reason that the Canadian government was pushing to subdivide Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta was to affirm Canadian sovereignty over these lands. The United States was undergoing rapid expansion in the 1860s, and the Canadian government was afraid that the Americans would expand into Canadian territory. Canada's introduction of a railway and surveying was a means to discourage American encroachment. Sir
John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...
remarked in 1870 that the Americans "are resolved to do all they can short of war, to get possession of our western territory, and we must take immediate and vigorous steps to counteract them." The beginning of the Dominion Land Survey marked a new era for western Canada. Railways were making their way to the West and the population of western regions began to increase. The introduction of the survey system marked the end of the nomadic ways for the First Nations and Metis. This did not go over well and was a catalyst to the events of the
Red River Rebellion The Red River Rebellion (french: Rébellion de la rivière Rouge), also known as the Red River Resistance, Red River uprising, or First Riel Rebellion, was the sequence of events that led up to the 1869 establishment of a provisional government by ...
. Being a surveyor was not easy. The hours were long, the time away from civilization was longer, and the elements were unforgiving. A survey party generally consisted of up to 20 members, which would include a party chief, chain men, a cook, people to saw trees, a recorder, and people to turn angles. All travel was either on horseback or by foot. To begin surveying a party chief would have to buy approximately $400 worth of instruments. These instruments included an
alidade An alidade () (archaic forms include alhidade, alhidad, alidad) or a turning board is a device that allows one to sight a distant object and use the line of sight to perform a task. This task can be, for example, to triangulate a scale map on site ...
,
dumpy level A level is an optical instrument used to establish or verify points in the same horizontal plane in a process known as levelling, and is used in conjunction with a levelling staff to establish the relative height levels of objects or marks. It is ...
,
theodolite A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
, Gunter's chain (which was replaced by a steel tape), and a
solar compass Burt's solar compass or astronomical compass is a surveying instrument that makes use of the Sun's direction instead of magnetism. William Austin Burt invented his solar compass in 1835. The solar compass works on the principle that the direct ...
or a vernier compass. The Dominion Land Survey system was proposed in 1869 by
John Stoughton Dennis Lieutenant-Colonel John Stoughton Dennis (19 October 1820 – 7 July 1885) was a Canadian surveyor, militia officer, and civil servant, born in Kingston, Upper Canada. In 1866, Dennis led an ill-fated militia attack against the Fenians at ...
. The initial plan, though based on the square townships of the American
Public Lands Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1 ...
, involved 9-mile townships divided into sixty-four 800-acre sections consisting of four 200-acre lots each. Work to establish the first meridian and few township outlines began and quickly ended in 1869 when a party of Metis symbolically stepped on a survey chain, beginning the
Red River Resistance The Red River Rebellion (french: Rébellion de la rivière Rouge), also known as the Red River Resistance, Red River uprising, or First Riel Rebellion, was the sequence of events that led up to the 1869 establishment of a provisional government by ...
. Work resumed in 1871; however, the system was redesigned to use 6-mile townships with 640-acre sections based on a suggestion from Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories William McDougall, who advocated that most of the settlers would come from the United States, so it was "advisable to offer them lots of a size to which they have been accustomed." The Dominion Land Survey System still differed from the Public Land System because it contained road allowances. The Dominion Land Survey was enormous. Around are estimated to have been subdivided into quarter sections, 27 million of which were surveyed by 1883 (14 years after the system's inception). The amount of work undertaken between 1871 and 1930 is given justice by the amount of paperwork submitted: the maps, plans, and memos transferred by the Canadian government to the provinces filled approximately 200 railway cars. This did not include closed or dormant files, which would fill 9,000 filing cabinets and weigh about 227 tons. Until very recently, surveying to take distance and angular measurements was done with manually controlled instruments. Distance was measured using either a chain or more recently a transit or range finder. To turn angles, a
theodolite A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
was used. To find their location, they used astronomical observations, and to find elevation, levels and barometers were used.LAJEUNESSE CLAUD
''The Canadian Encyclopedia'', "Surveying."
23+.. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.)
To see over long distances, towers were constructed from timber in flat and wooded areas.Natural Resources Canada. "100 Years of Geodetic Surveys in Canada."
(Date Modified:2009-11-24): 23+.. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.)


Meridians and baselines

The most important north–south lines of the survey are the meridians:Western Land Grants (1879-1930)
, Library and Archives Canada
* The First (also Principal or Prime) Meridian at 97°27′28.41″ west, just west of
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...
,
Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...
. Its southern end is exactly ten miles west of where the Red River crosses the border from the United States into Canada. * The Second Meridian at 102° west, which forms the northern part of the Manitoba–
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...
boundary. * The Third Meridian at 106° west, near
Moose Jaw Moose Jaw is the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Lying on the Moose Jaw River in the south-central part of the province, it is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javian ...
and
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan Prince Albert is the third-largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada, after Saskatoon and Regina. It is situated near the centre of the province on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. The city is known as the "Gateway to the North" because ...
. * The Fourth Meridian at 110° west, which forms the Saskatchewan–
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
boundary and bisects
Lloydminster Lloydminster is a city in Canada which has the unusual geographic distinction of straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administrati ...
. * The Fifth Meridian at 114° west, which runs through Calgary ( Barlow Trail is built mostly on the meridian) and
Stony Plain, Alberta Stony Plain is a town in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region of Alberta, Canada that is surrounded by Parkland County. It is west of Edmonton adjacent to the City of Spruce Grove and sits on Treaty 6 land. Stony Plain is known for its many painted ...
(48th Street). * The Sixth Meridian at 118° west, near
Grande Prairie, Alberta Grande Prairie is a city in northwest Alberta, Canada within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country. It is located at the intersection of Highway 43 (part of the CANAMEX Corridor) and Highway 40 (the Bighorn Highway), ...
, and
Revelstoke, British Columbia Revelstoke () is a city in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, with a census population of 8,275 in 2021. Revelstoke is located east of Vancouver, and west of Calgary, Alberta. The city is situated on the banks of the Columbia River just sout ...
. * The Seventh Meridian at 122° west, between Hope and
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
,
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
(Lickman Rd,
Chilliwack Chilliwack ( )( hur, Ts'elxwéyeqw) is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Chilliwack is surrounded by mountains and home to recreational areas such as Cultus Lake and Chilliwack Lake Provincial Parks. There are numerous outdo ...
). * The Coast Meridian at approximately 122°45′ west, originally established before British Columbia joined the Confederation, was surveyed north from the point where the 49th parallel intersects the sea at
Semiahmoo Bay Semiahmoo Bay ( ) is the southeastern section of Boundary Bay on the Pacific coast of North America. The bay is named for the Semiahmoo First Nation, who originally occupied the area. The Semiahmoo Peninsula borders the bay and was home to canne ...
. 168th Street in Surrey is built mainly on the meridian. The meridians were determined by painstaking survey observations and measurements, and in reference to other benchmarks on the continent, but were determined using 19th-century technology. The only truly accurate benchmarks at that time were near the prime meridian in Europe. Benchmarks in other parts of the world had to be calculated or estimated by the positions of the sun and stars. Consequently, although they were remarkably accurate for the time, today they are known to be several hundred metres in error. Before the survey was even completed it was established that for the purposes of laws based on the survey, the results of the physical survey would take precedence over the theoretically correct position of the meridians. This precludes, for example, any basis for a
boundary dispute A territorial dispute or boundary dispute is a disagreement over the possession or control of land between two or more political entities. Context and definitions Territorial disputes are often related to the possession of natural resources s ...
between Alberta and Saskatchewan on account of surveying errors. The main east–west lines are the baselines. The First Baseline is at
49° north The 49th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 49 ° north of Earth's equator. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean. The city of Paris is about south of the 49th parallel and is the lar ...
, which forms much of the Canada–United States border in the West. Each subsequent baseline is about to the north of the previous one, terminating at 60° north, which forms the boundary with
Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.


Townships

Starting at each intersection of a meridian and a baseline and working west (also working east of the First Meridian and the Coast Meridian), nearly square
township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...
s were surveyed, whose north–south and east–west sides are about in length. There are two tiers of townships to the north and two tiers to the south of each baseline. Because the east and west edges of townships, called "range lines", are meridians of
longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...
, they converge towards the
North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
. Therefore, the north edge of every township is slightly shorter than the south. Only along the baselines do townships have their nominal width from east to west. The two townships to the north of a baseline gradually narrow as one moves north, and the two to the south gradually widen as one moves south. Halfway between two base lines, wider-than-nominal townships abut narrower-than-nominal townships. The east and west boundaries of these townships therefore do not align, and north–south roads that follow the survey system have to jog to the east or west. These east–west lines halfway between baselines are called "correction lines". Townships are designated by their "township number" and "range number". Township 1 is the first north of the First Baseline, and the numbers increase to the north. Range numbers recommence with Range 1 at each meridian and increase to the west (also east of First Meridian and Coast Meridian). On maps, township numbers are marked in
Arabic numeral Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such as ...
s, but range numbers are often marked in
Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, ea ...
s; however, in other contexts Arabic numerals are used for both. Individual townships are designated such as "Township 52, Range 25 west of the Fourth Meridian," abbreviated "52-25-W4." In Manitoba, the First Meridian is the only one used, so the abbreviations are even more terse, e.g., "3-1-W" and "24-2-E.". In Manitoba legislation, the abbreviations WPM and EPM are used: "3-1 WPM" and "2N4-2 EPM".


Sections

Every township is divided into 36 ''sections'', each about square. Sections are numbered within townships, beginning with the southeast section, as follows (north at top): In turn, each section is divided into four ''quarter sections'' (square land parcels roughly 1/2 mile on a side): southeast, southwest, northwest and northeast. This quarter-section description is primarily used by the agricultural industry. The full legal description of a particular quarter section is "the Northeast Quarter of Section 20, Township 52, Range 25 west of the Fourth Meridian", abbreviated "NE-20-52-25-W4." A section may also be split into as many as 16 ''legal subdivisions'' (LSDs). LSDs are commonly used by the oil and gas industry as a precise way of locating wells, pipelines, and facilities. LSDs can be "quarter-quarter sections" (square land parcels roughly on a side, comprising roughly in area)—but this is not necessary. Many are other fractions of a section (a half-quarter section—roughly in area is common). LSDs may be square, rectangular, and occasionally even triangular. LSDs are numbered as follows (north at top): Occasionally, resource companies assign further divisions within LSDs such as "A, B, C, D, etc." for example, to distinguish between multiple sites within an LSD. These in no way constitute an official change to the Dominion Land Survey system, but nonetheless often appear as part of the legal description. In summary, the hierarchy of the division of Western Canada went as follows: * Province ** Township (composed of 36 sections) *** Sections (composed of 4 quarter sections or 16 legal subdivisions) **** Quarter sections ***: or **** Legal subdivisions


Road allowances

Between certain sections of a township run "road allowances" (but not all road allowances have an actual road built on them). The road allowances add to the size of the township (they do not cut down the size of the sections): this is the reason base lines are not exactly apart. In townships surveyed from 1871 to 1880 (most of southern Manitoba, part of southeastern Saskatchewan and a small region near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan), there are road allowances of surrounding every section. In townships surveyed from 1881 to the present, road allowances are reduced both in width and in number. They are wide and run north–south between all sections; however, there are only three east–west road allowances in each township, on the north side of sections 7 to 12, 19 to 24 and 31 to 36. This results in a north–south road allowance every mile going west, and an east–west road allowance every two miles going north. This arrangement reduced land allocation for roads, but still provides road-access to every quarter-section. Road allowances are one of the differences between the Canadian DLS and the American
Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...
, which leaves no extra space for roads.


Special sections


Hudson's Bay Company

As part of the deal that transferred
Rupert's Land Rupert's Land (french: Terre de Rupert), or Prince Rupert's Land (french: Terre du Prince Rupert, link=no), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin; this was further extended from Rupert's Land t ...
from the
Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...
to Canada, the HBC retained five per cent of the "fertile belt" (south of the North Saskatchewan and Winnipeg rivers). Therefore, Section 8 and three-quarters of Section 26 were assigned to the company. Additionally, the fourth quarter of Section 26 in townships whose numbers were divisible by five also belonged to the HBC in order to give the company exactly five per cent. Although the HBC sold all these sections long ago, they are still often locally called "the ''Bay section''" today.


Railroads

Resulting in a "
checkerboard pattern Check (also checker, Brit: chequer) is a pattern of modified stripes consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical lines which form squares. The pattern typically contains two colours where a single checker (that is a single square within the chec ...
", odd-numbered sections (except 11 and 29) were often used for
railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
land-grants. The Prairies could not be settled without railways, so the Dominion government habitually granted large tracts of land to railway companies as an incentive to build lines. Notably, the Canadian Pacific Railway was granted for the construction of its first line from Ontario to the Pacific. These sections are colloquially called ''CPR sections'' regardless of the railway they were originally granted to.


Education

Sections 11 and 29 were ''school sections''. When
school board A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...
s were formed, they gained title to these sections, which were then sold to fund the initial construction of schools. The rural school buildings were as often as not located on school sections; frequently, land trades were made between landowners and the school for practical reasons.


Homesteads

The remaining quarter sections were available as ''homesteads'' under the provisions of the
Dominion Lands Act The ''Dominion Lands Act'' (long title: ''An Act Respecting the Public Lands of the Dominion'') was an 1872 Canadian law that aimed to encourage the settlement of the Canadian Prairies and to help prevent the area being claimed by the United Sta ...
, the federal government's plan for settling the North-West. A homesteader paid a $10 fee for a quarter section of his choice. If after three years he had cultivated and had built a house (often just a sod house), he gained title to the quarter. Homesteads were available as late as the 1950s, but the bulk of the settlement of the Prairies was 1885 to 1914. Legal surveys conducted before and after the Dominion Land Survey grid was laid out often have their own legal descriptions and delineations. Early settlement lots still retain their own original legal descriptions, but often have townships superimposed over them for the sake of convenience or for certain tasks. Urban developments superimpose new survey lots and plans over the older section and township grid also.


Political disputes over the survey

Certain areas otherwise within the surveys' boundaries were not part of the survey grid, or not available for homesteading. These were
Indian reserves In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Ind ...
, pre-existing "settlements" divided into " river lots" based on the French system used in Quebec, and lands around Hudson's Bay Company trading posts reserved for the company when it transferred its claim over the West to Canada in 1870. The rights of the pre-DLS settlers was a major political issue in the West in the late nineteenth century. The settlers claimed squatters' rights over the land they had already farmed, but the sizes and boundaries of these farms were poorly defined, leading to frequent disputes. As well the Métis in the Southbranch settlements of Saskatchewan were particularly with their land rights given that they had not been well protected by the ''
Manitoba Act The ''Manitoba Act, 1870'' (french: link=no, Loi de 1870 sur le Manitoba)Originally entitled (until renamed in 1982) ''An Act to amend and continue the Act 32 and 33 Victoria, chapter 3; and to establish and provide for the Government of the Pro ...
'' as they had been promised in 1870. In the case of the closely clustered settlements of Edmonton, St. Albert, and Fort Saskatchewan in the Alberta District, a militant "settlers' rights" movement developed which demanded action from the federal government to grant the settlers legal title to their land and to end claim jumping. The movement even resorted to vigilante action against suspected claim jumpers. Most of these grievances were resolved by 1885, which is likely one of the reasons the area never joined the North-West Rebellion despite the fact that St. Albert, and to a lesser extent Edmonton, were largely populated by Métis people.


See also

*
Alberta Township System The Alberta Township System (ATS) is a land surveying system used in the Canadian province of Alberta and other parts of western Canada. History and background In principle there is a mathematical basis for the Alberta Township System (ATS) variant ...
* Concession road *
Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...
(United States) * Section (United States land surveying) *
The Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors The Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors (ABCLS) is a self-governing, non-profit, non-governmental organization which sets educational requirements, examines for admission, and regulates professional land surveyors within British Columb ...


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links

* {{cite book , last= Hubbard , first= Bill , title= American Boundaries , year= 2009 , publisher= University of Chicago Press , isbn= 978-0-226-35591-7 , page= 347 , url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LMacwod5KLwC&pg=PA347 , access-date= 8 November 2010
Index to Townships in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia: Showing the Townships for which Official and Preliminary Plans have been issued up to January 1st, 1929
made by the Topographical Survey of Canada, Department of the Interior; available online from Library and Archives Canada
Map Service from AgCanada: Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba: quarter-sections, sections, and townships. Ontario: geographic townships and concession lots. To view fabric for each province, expand "Canada Land Parcels" in contents and enable layers.
Geography of Canada Land surveying systems Real estate in Canada Surveying of Canada Economic history of Canada