Western Land Surveys

In 1869 the Dominion Government of Canada began surveying all wilderness lands east of Manitoba all the way to the Rocky Mountains.  The land was divided up into areas called Townships consisting of thirty-six (36), one mile square sections of 640 acres each.  Every section was individually sub-divided into four quarter sections of 160 acres and each corner marked by numbered survey stakes.  Only 64 of the available 144 quarter sections in each township (45%), were allocated for Homestead Grants which could be applied for at the cost of only $10.  The Hudson Bay Company was given sections eight (8) and twenty-six (26) in each township as part payment for their relinquishment of Rupert's Land.  The government appropriated (sold) many sections to Eastern land speculators and all other odd numbered sections were reserved as railway grants.  After all the homesteads were taken, the railways and land speculators sold their sections at great profits to immigrants who had no choice but to pay the exorbitant  prices.  Quill Lakes Survey Map

National Trust Company Limited    Canada Saskatchewan Land Company Limited
Saskatchewan Valley Land Company Limited    The Canadian Northern Railway Company
Canadian Pacific Railway   Grand Trunk Railway

Survey Notes: According to the system of Surveys in the Canadian Northwest, Sections are one mile square and are  marked by monuments at the corners.  These monuments consist of four pits three feet square and eighteen inches deep and about 5 inches apart.  In the prairie country an iron post is driven into the ground, at the center of this system of pits, and the post is marked with a chisel on its South-West face, with the number of the Section, Township and Range, in Roman numerals.  So that one must always remember that the iron post at the North-East corner of each Section alone bears the Section number.  In bush country a mound is erected midway between the pits, and the iron post is driven into the ground on the North side of the mound, and is marked as in prairie country.  Pits are also dug at the half miles to indicate the corners of the Quarter Sections.  Midway between these pits a wooden post is planted, with the fraction "1/4"cut on it.  Road Allowances are always to the North and the East of the monuments.  Townships are made six miles square.  In order to maintain this size, and on the account of the spherical form of the earth, there occur in the surveys in the West what are called "Correction Lines" running East and West and situated twenty-four miles apart.  It is on these lines that the "jogs" due to the convergence of meridians are left and they are indicated in the field by the surveyor by digging the pits in a different position from those on other lines.