Alberta Boundaries Spring 2009 by Venture Publishing

The Perfect Candidate: Find out what it takes to be a surveyor

GROUNDED IN THE PAST - LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

SPRING 2009

Surveyors map growth in Albertaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oilpatch

Meet

Surveyors

A tripod is only one part of the toolkit

Forget the Bush Join the team in the concrete jungle

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CONTENTS PUBLISHED FOR:

Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association Phipps-McKinnon Building Suite 1000, 10020 - 101A Avenue Edmonton, AB T5J 3G2 Phone (780) 429-8805 Fax (780) 429-3374 Email: info@alsa.ab.ca www.alsa.ab.ca

COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 5

EDITOR’S NOTE

ISSUES IN INDUSTRY

Meeting the challenges ahead BY RON HALL

ASSOCIATION FORECAST

A view from the ALSA BY BRIAN MUNDAY

PUBLISHED BY:

Venture Publishing Inc. 10259 105 Street Edmonton, AB T5J 1E3 Toll-free 1-866-227-4276 Phone (780) 990-0839 Fax (780) 425-4921 www.venturepublishing.ca

MESSAGES FROM THE PREMIER AND MINISTER

FRONT LINES

Jargon buster; Technicians and technologists; ALSA family ties; David Thompson redux; Surveyors and homebuyers; Riel yanks a chain 18

SPOTLIGHT

Find out the difference between geomatics and land surveying BY DR. ROBERT RADOVANOVIC

49 PUBLISHER

Ruth Kelly

SURVEYOR’S STAR SIGN

Forget about Sagittarius the Archer. Meet Surveyus the Measurer 50

LAST WORD

A surveyor recalls some of his finer moments from the field

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Daska Davis

BY BRUCE DRAKE

ALSA EDITOR

Brian Munday EDITOR

Mifi Purvis

FEATURES 20

A glance at the first 100 years of Alberta land surveying

COPY CHIEF

Kim Tannas ART DIRECTOR

Charles Burke

BY SHANNON SUTHERLAND

Rodrigo López Orozco Betty Smith

Geoff Cwiklewich Anita McGillis ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES

Alicia Kuzio, Penny Smith, Stephen Tamayo SALES ASSISTANT

EDUCATING THE SURVEYOR

Discover access points to the field with a focus on the University of Calgary’s geomatics. PLUS: Labour mobility

PRODUCTION TECHNICIAN VICE-PRESIDENT, SALES

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

Meet the surveyor of yesteryear and tomorrow’s professional

DESIGNER PRODUCTION MANAGER

A LOOK BACK

BY DAVID DICENZO

SURVEYING THE PATCH

The oilpatch, that is. Find out how surveying enabled the growth of the province’s richest resource BY JIM VEENBAAS

Stefanie Jackson

A day in the life of a team at work in the city

BY TRICIA RADISON

Non-deliverable mail should be directed to the Edmonton ofﬁce: 10259 105 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 1E3.

PROFILING THE PROS

Meet seven Alberta land surveyors at work BY CAITLIN CRAWSHAW

Printed in Canada. Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement #40020055.

URBAN SURVEYS

On the Cover: From left, Ben Woodland, Bob Wallace and Marc Michaud. Photographed by John Gaucher

Top photo courtesy of McElhanney Land Surveys Ltd.

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1/21/09 11:58:18 AM

Congratulations to the ALSA on your 100 years

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EDITOR’S NOTE

BY BRIAN MUNDAY

Welcome to Alberta Boundaries We want to spread the word about the role of land surveying in the peaceful and orderly development of Alberta

i BRIAN MUNDAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ALBERTA LAND SURVEYORS’ ASSOCIATION

REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I WAS IN A PLANE

flying over Alberta. I couldn’t help but notice the systematic rectangular layout of the land. It was apparent to me even then that a great deal of thought and effort had gone into creating this system – even if back then I didn’t realize that land surveyors were the ones who created it. But land surveyors did create it. We don’t often think about the survey system we have in Alberta. Perhaps it is because land surveyors are usually on the land doing their work before there is any sign of development. Or perhaps it is because the land surveyors have done their job so well that there are very few boundary disputes in this province. Alberta Boundaries is designed to spread the word about the role of land surveying in the peaceful and orderly development of Alberta. Land surveyors played a large role in the history of the province – surveying a vast open territory into sections of land for soon-to-be-arriving homesteaders. Land surveying is also playing a tremendous role in the future of Alberta –

using the latest technologies to measure, map and capture data on a scale previously unimaginable. Throughout Alberta Boundaries, you will find stories that highlight the land surveyor’s role in everything from large oil and gas projects to small residential real estate projects. From survey work across the street to around the other side of the world. The magazine also shows how much land surveying has become a part of our everyday lives. Ever travelled on Baseline Road? Or how about Meridian Street? Baselines and meridians are survey terms. Ever been to Magrath, Alberta? It was named after land surveyor Charles Magrath. As the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association celebrates its centennial, we pay tribute to the legendary feats of yesterday’s land surveyors, recognize today’s land surveyors in helping build a modern Alberta, and look ahead as far as the eye can see at the future of professional land surveying.

www.alsa.ab.ca

ASSOCIATION FORECAST

BY BRIAN MUNDAY

Challenging Times If the measure of Alberta surveyors is how well we respond to change and challenge, then our association indicates a bullish year ahead

HESE ARE CHALLENGING TIMES FOR ALL PROFESSIONALS

and professional associations in Alberta and elsewhere. Over the 100-year history of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association, there have always been challenges and land surveyors have faced them head-on. Some have been political or economic in nature and some have been related to the influence of emerging technologies. Let’s step back for a moment and think about what it means to be a professional. A professional is a person who, through a combination of education and experience, can provide a learned opinion in their area of expertise and take action based on that opinion. Often they must balance the goals of conflicting groups such as clients, governments and the public at large. The professional is bound by a code of ethics. All of this applies to Alberta’s land surveyor. Surveyors are constantly battling a stereotype. People think of the land surveyor as a person who measures distances by standing behind a funny looking instrument on a tripod. But the person standing behind that instrument is often not the professional land surveyor, and measuring distances is only one very small part of the professional’s work. Measuring from one spot to another is the easy part, but knowing where to measure from and where to measure to is what makes land surveying a profession. The ideal land surveyor is like Sherlock Holmes, uncovering clues and looking for evidence as to what yesteryear’s surveyor did when the boundaries were originally established. Sometimes the evidence is nothing more than a small rust hole providing a clue that a boundary marker was once there.

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In Alberta, today’s land surveyor has to be a bit of a politician. Increasingly amid the need for transparency, due diligence and complex regulation, the surveyor has to understand legislation, how it’s applied in practical terms and he has to be able to clearly explain it. So what of that person standing behind the instrument, the one whom the public is most familiar with?

The paramount aim of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association is to safeguard the public interest. That individual is part of the land survey team. Often known as a party chief, he or she works with drafting staff, plan checkers, researchers, project managers and others under the direction of a land surveyor. Led by the surveyor, this team serves the people of Alberta. The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association also faces broader and complex challenges. Created by the provincial legislature, the association exists to protect the public’s interests relative to property boundaries. It assists the public and answers questions about surveys and the profession itself. There are people who incorrectly assume that the association’s intent is to further the interests of members. In fact, its paramount aim is to safeguard the public interest. The Government of Alberta appoints public members to serve on committees that communicate directly with the association. Input from these committees is vital and

Message from the Honourable Ed Stelmach ensures that the public’s voice is heard. But the public’s concerns can often be in conflict; that’s probably one of the biggest challenges facing professional regulatory organizations today. The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association has a rigorous process to ensure that only the most capable people receive their commission. At the same time, changes in the demographic makeup in this province and country means trying to attract more professionals from a dwindling number of young people. We’ve taken significant steps, such as consulting with government and our sister associations, to increase the mobility of land surveyors without diminishing their skills and expertise. The association has an obligation to ensure that a skilled surveyor, once commissioned, remains competent throughout his or her career. So we’ve had an extensive and in-depth systematic practice review program running since 1994. The reviews of the majority of Alberta Land Surveyors have been tremendously positive. Those surveyors who wanted some assistance to improve their practice received it. We hope to evolve and improve our practice review and renew our continuing competency program with input from association members. As we address these challenges, part of the answer will be found in the history of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association. If we look at what our predecessors have done – examine the survey evidence – and see how they faced challenges, we’ll have our guide. I don’t know of any Alberta Land Surveyor who doesn’t want help to find solutions to these issues. After all, professionals are people who are accustomed to finding solutions to problems that don’t have black and white answers. And the association that represents them to the people of Alberta wouldn’t have it any other way.

On behalf of the Government of Alberta, I wish to extend my congratulations to the members of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association as you celebrate your 100th annual general meeting. The work you perform has helped to shape our wonderful province as we see it today. As our province grows… so does the number of commissioned Alberta land surveyors working to survey and map the province. Your profession plays an integral role in laying the lines for our parks, roads and the growing oil and gas industry. The value of the effort Alberta land surveyors pour into the development of our province cannot be underestimated. The partnership between the Alberta land surveyors and the Government of Alberta is a positive one – and I look forward to continuing this relationship well into the future. Ed Stelmach Premier of Alberta

Message from the Honourable Ted Morton This is an exciting time for members of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association, as April 2009 marks your 100th annual general meeting. The theme of this year’s convention, “The Past, the Future and the Present,” is fitting seeing that surveying has a rich history in Alberta – from the days of the Dominion Land Surveyors to the registration of the first Alberta Land Surveyors on January 1, 1911. It is professional surveyors like you who plot our public land for conservation and development. You play a pivotal role in Alberta by supporting the growing oil and gas and land subdivision industries as well as our transportation networks. My department supports the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association and we wish to congratulate you on this significant occasion. Thank you for your hard work and valuable contributions to the province of Alberta. Ted Morton Minister of the Department of Sustainable Resources

www.alsa.ab.ca

PRESIDENT’S NOTE

BY RON HALL

Bring It On Let’s look at changes that are impacting our profession and ﬁnd out where the advantages lie

t RON HALL, PRESIDENT ALBERTA LAND SURVEYORS’ ASSOCIATION

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HE ALBERTA LAND SURVEYORS’ ASSOC-

iation (ALSA) has a strong and proud past, and it has been my pleasure to be involved in the association in several different ways during my career. It’s a special privilege now to serve as president. After a century of regulating the land surveying profession, the ALSA continues to be a truly stable and well-run organization. As we prepare to celebrate our 100th year as a professional body dedicated to protecting the public, I believe the theme we have selected is very appropriate: “Honour the past, celebrate the present and look to the future.” Over the past year, I’ve had the honour of representing Alberta surveyors across the country and I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in many discussions about what the future of the profession holds and the changes that it will face in the not-too-distant future. Coming out of all this, I have a conviction that the key to facing the challenges ahead is a solid plan of evolution rather than revolution. There are a number of issues facing the surveying profession (and the ALSA organization specifically) that we need to deal with in the coming days, months and years. ALSA and many of its sister organizations are doing their best to face them proactively and leverage strengths to ensure the sustainability of the profession. We know change is coming, and we’re preparing to adapt rather than resist. One of the biggest issues most professions have faced over the past several years, and

continue to face, is that of demographics and sustainability. Simply put, the average age of land surveyors is steadily creeping up. Eventually, older surveyors will want to retire, putting a possible strain on the profession. For the profession to be vibrant, sustainable and to meet the demands and expectations of the public we need to have a continual influx of new blood. We need to develop new ways to attract younger members. Over the past decade, many governments have implemented different kinds of free trade agreements. Several years ago, NAFTA spearheaded the concept of cross-border mobility and, in 2001, as part of a Federal Government initiative, surveyors across Canada enacted a Mutual Recognition Agreement, making it easier for surveyors licensed in one province to become licensed in other provinces. Last April, the associations representing surveyors in British Columbia and Alberta signed reciprocal agreements allowing surveyors to practice in either province upon the completion of a jurisdiction-specific examination, which can be completed in half a day. And discussions are ongoing across all of the provinces to expand this professional free-trade zone nationally. Such agreements are a very positive step, allowing surveyors to become more competitive on the world stage, as well as allowing provinces to support each other in the case of bad economic weather. The worldwide economic downturn makes this concern all

target of governmental approvals adds many layers of complexity the more real. Labour Mobility Agreements also help in attracting beyond worrying that measurements are correct and boundary younger land surveyors to the profession by providing them with markers are set properly. greater options in choosing where to live and where to apply their These responsibilities have changed the nature of a surveyor. knowledge and experience. Maybe we can avoid a repeat of the last While many land surveyors enjoy the 20 years of struggling to attract bright rigours of working outside, the propeople to the land surveying profession. I strongly believe that the fession is becoming one of managing We’ll be better equipped to attract more technical staff from the confines of key people to the profession. Alberta Land Surveyors’ an office. Today, technicians and At the same time, we want to capitalAssociation and its members technologists do much of the survey ize on the fact that Canada is a magnet are well positioned to meet work that Alberta Land Surveyors for highly-trained immigrants. To better once did. The shift has created new tap into this reservoir of talent, governthe challenges that lie ahead. roles in the field and the office, some ments at all levels are aiming to ensure that are not well recognized or certiforeign trained professionals are fairly fied. Surveyors must understand these changes, manage the proand transparently recognized in their jurisdictions. Land surveycess and implement controls to protect the public’s interests. ing is no different. We have to maintain the delicate balance, From a technological standpoint, the last two decades have ensuring the public is protected by our tough standards but also been a cornucopia of development. GPS has radically changed the enabling qualified people to get licensed and meet the increased way we survey. Immense amounts of topographic data are availdemand for surveyors. able thanks to satellite imaging. Surveyors can take any site in Our challenge is to streamline the application and testing proAlberta and, by merging different geo-spatial datasets, come up cess and yet still monitor, enforce and discipline our membership with a picture of the place that is more complete than if you under a new system that’s based on professional ethics rather went there yourself. But how does this convert to knowledge that than purely knowledge and practice. can help clients make an informed decision? Developing useful We haven’t explored this new frontier. What does mandatory and cost-effective products and efficient delivery mechanisms is peer practice review, continuing competency requirements and important to surveyors growing their businesses. The days of continuing education look like in a mobile, non-locally based produsty, static, printed maps or Mylars delivered Monday through fession? Does it become more of a national responsibility that the Friday are long gone – the public now expects products to be provinces oversee or direct? Does this labour mobility trend not web-accessible, cross-linkable and available 24-7. create a stronger need for a national body, for national oversight Professions such as our own must continue to evolve, embrace of the profession? What happens when the surveyor from change and be proactive leaders in meeting the demands expectCharlottetown has to prove himself competent to complete a coned of professionals in the 21st century. I believe that the Alberta dominium development in Vancouver? Land Surveyors’ Association and its members are well positioned Environmental and regulatory changes will affect the way we to meet the challenges that lie ahead. We not only recognize the survey. Surveying is increasingly taking place in the office rather opportunities created by change, but also offer leadership to than the field. Ensuring that projects minimize impacts on the environment, remain economical for clients and meet the moving make our communities a better place to live.

www.alsa.ab.ca

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FRONT LINES

Meet the Public BY STEPHANIE SPARKS

ouse buyers need to converse with numerous professionals: real estate agents, lawyers, home inspectors, financial advisors – and now land surveyors? For some members of the public, the only time they’ll meet a land surveyor is when it comes time to buy a house. “One should be called in for every house purchase,” advises Jim Maidment, president of Maidment Land Surveys and Alberta Land Surveyor for 23 years. “The vendor, if they’re aware of any problems and sell the house without disclosing those problems, can be held responsiwhere the owner has just built the garage – not surveyed ble well after the sale.” at all – and the garage ends up encroaching on the The buyer or vendor can avoid any problems by hiring neighbour’s property. a land surveyor to conduct a real property report. “There was an oddball case a few years back, where the Depending on his or her workload, and it varies from firm fence was dramatically in the wrong spot by a to firm, the land surveyor can compile a property report in few metres. This fellow came along, put in an offer to pura fairly short time after completing a field visit and the chase because he figured he could drive his motorhome ensuing office work. down between the house and the fence. After we’d done Any problems the surveyor discovers may be as minor the real property report, he actually withdrew the offer as a concrete RV pad extending over the property line because it turned out the fence was so far out. He thought or as complicated as a garage encroaching on a neigh- it was on the property line, but it turned out there was no bour’s land. room in there at all for the motorhome. Basically he would “It happens often enough,” Maidment says. “Probably have to drive on the neighbour’s property. So the property once a month, we bump into one of these property reports wasn’t as valuable as he would have liked.”

Riel Yanks a Chain On October 11, 1869, Louis Riel led a party of 18 Métis men to defend their occupancy and ownership of land along the Assiniboine River. The Hudson’s Bay Company was in the process of transferring ownership of the land to the Government of Canada. The Métis, who had settled the area, objected. Unarmed, Riel registered his protest by stepping on the surveyor’s chain. The survey party withdrew and Riel’s “yanking of the chain” is often considered the spark point of the Red River Resistance, which was a precursor to the Northwest Rebellion.

www.alsa.ab.ca

FRONT LINES

Technically Certiﬁable BY DAVID DICENZO

and surveying work is two-fold. There’s the handson fieldwork and the subsequent time spent in the office completing other tasks related to the survey. “Back in the day, there were surveyors who did both parts. Over time, the land surveyors migrated further into project management roles,” says Dr. Robert Radovanovic of SARPI Ltd., a geomatics and engineering firm based in Edmonton. The void in the field, he says, has been filled by technicians and technologists, who are currently not officially certified. The move towards certifying surveying technicians has taken on momentum as their duties and responsibilities increase. “As a member of the public, you see someone on the street corner measuring out property lines and you think that would be the surveyor,” says Radovanovic. They are more likely to be surveying technicians. While technicians and technologists don’t currently fall under any legislation, they are an integral part of the industry. Radovanovic says the roles of technicians and

technologists should be certified and regulated. In an effort to better define these roles and where they fit into the surveying profession, the ALSA has formed a joint committee with the Alberta Society of Surveying and Mapping Technologies (ASSMT). The two associations have agreed to collaborate, addressing the issues that relate to professionals and para-professionals. Both groups have pledged to maintain quality in education and high standards in training. “There’s a lot of responsibility downloaded on the technicians and technologists,” says Barry Bleay, a senior survey technologist with ASSMT and member of the joint committee. “To this point, there has never been any legislative obligation for professionals to hire those that are certified.” The committee is trying to define processes and parameters as they relate to certification of technicians and technologists. Some of the more prevalent issues the committee will examine include professional development, education and curriculums in schools and, ultimately, the certification of members. “We’re basically trying to get these people certified,” Bleay says, “because they are working in support of professionals. It only makes sense.” The committee expects to present more detailed information later this year.

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The Rich Surveyor In 2002, a painting by Paul Kane sold at auction for $5.1 million, giving it the biggest price tag attached to any Canadian painting. He was friends with Captain John Henry Lefroy, the subject of the painting, which is usually known as In The Northwest – Portrait. As well as his military association, Lefroy was a scientist. He reportedly studied the Earth’s magnetic field, calculating the location of the magnetic North Pole. The painting is also known by its other title, one that celebrates Captain Lefroy’s other position: The Surveyor: Portrait of Captain John Henry Lefroy.

Third Dimension In 2003, Raymac Surveys Ltd. was awarded the ALSA Geomatics Award of Excellence for a project that didn’t leave anybody flat. People think of surveying as marking out space in two dimensions: a chain on the ground. But when Raymac undertook the survey of the space between the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary and the Hyatt Regency during a construction project that would join the two, they were looking up and down and at all the spaces between. Raymac had to survey downwards to include three levels of parking, and upwards to include five storeys of sometimes shared space. At some points in the design, exclusively Hyatt property overlapped onto Convention Centre space. Raymac had to account for an underground walkway, LRT and roads. “We defined property boundaries and described what was joint use and what was exclusive to each side,” says project manager and surveyor Terry Hudema. “In the end we had 21 plans, which used 3-D images, to support boxes of documentation.”

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FRONT LINES

Family Ties

BY STEPHANIE SPARKS

lberta Land Surveyors are a close-knit group. Some are even family. Duncan Gillmore, Jr. of Gillmore Surveys Ltd. enjoyed land surveying with his father when he was younger, so he entered the field himself. “My dad let me decide for myself what I wanted to do,” says Gillmore, “but certainly didn’t discourage me once I started showing that I wanted to be a land surveyor.”

Lot 56, Still as Surveyed Nature lovers in St. Albert are familiar with River Lot 56 Natural Area. Never developed, Lot 56 still bears the name the surveyor attached to it when it was subdivided in the early 1900s. The river lot system of surveying ensured that all land holders had access to the Sturgeon River. In 1973, local users of the area banded together to maintain it as a park and Lot 56 was eventually granted municipal protection. It is home to walking trails that wind through graceful aspen forests, meadowland and riverside habitat.

Project managers Byron and Lesley Laurie married a year after university and both now work at Midwest Surveys Inc. in Edmonton. “We don’t work directly with one another,” explains Byron Laurie, project manager, oil and gas. “The best thing about having a career is having that individuality, and it’s good to try to maintain that working environment. I would say we’ve successfully done that.” Focus Corporation’s project manager Ashley Robertson agrees. Not only does she work with her husband and father-in-law, she’s a land surveyor like her father, several uncles and grandfather. “[My husband and I] make a conscious effort to not talk to each other during the day. Working together in a family environment can be very good, but you have to be really conscientious of what other people’s perceptions are. We work harder than we probably need to because we do want to make sure that people understand that what we’re doing is based on our own skill set and our own credibility, not just who we are. And I think people respect how we make it work. “It’s funny, the survey community is quite small,” she continues. “Everyone kind of knows everyone, even across provinces. And the more you start to talk to people, the more you realize it is a family profession in a lot of ways. A lot of people are involved in the profession because their dad was a surveyor and it’s a tradition.”

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Urban Camping Surveyors erect a tent in the downtown ofﬁces of the ALSA in preparation for the organization’s travelling historical display. This type of tent was commonly used by survey teams at work in the bush. The ALSA maintains a rich trove of surveying artifacts for educational purposes, ranging from antique survey instruments to cast iron pans. This travelling surveyors’ display is scheduled to tour the province this year to mark the centenary of the ALSA. In the coming weeks, check in at www.alsa.ab.ca to ﬁnd out when the exhibit is going to be in your area.

Water Highway

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“ When I joined the David Thompson Bicentennial Brigade, I was expecting a nice two-week canoe and camping trip. I wasn’t expecting the pageant that went along with it. I was part of the 15member ALSA group who retraced the route Thompson took along the inland waterway, which was once the only strip of civilization in the territory. “We started at Rocky Mountain House and every community we passed, even the smallest, put on a big celebration, with feasts and fireworks. Our group finished at Prince Albert, others went to Thunder Bay. The journey was to mark the 200th anniversary of Thompson’s original trip – he was an explorer, trader and surveyor. He surveyed much of the interior of what was then called the Northwest Territories.

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“He crossed the continent, mapping rivers, trading houses and forts. I was amazed by how accurate his survey was. He would record his readings at night (his Salish name meant ‘one who looks at the stars’) then bunk down for the winter and do his calculations. His maps from the late 1700s were used until the 1920s. I see his accomplishment as a real effort of will.”

– John Haggerty, Can-Am Geomatics

What’s in a Word? Blanket Easement: An easement that covers an entire parcel of land. It won’t keep you warm.

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Cadastral: Also known as “boundary” or “legal,” this branch of surveying helps to define and establish the extent of legal interest in the land. Easement: Legal right to the access or use of another person’s land. An easement is an agreement in which the landowner grants rights to another party to use a portion of his/her property. Encroachment: A structure (such as a garage onto a neighbour’s property) intruding onto the area of easement. The holder of the easement may ask that the encroaching structure be removed. Another reason to call a land surveyor before you build. Geomatics: The umbrella science

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RS Raymac Surveys Ltd.

encompassing the land surveying profession.

Holder: The party who has the easement agreement with the landowner. Landmark: A survey mark on a permanent land feature, such as a tree or boulder. Basically, it’s a mark on a landmark.

Congratulates the

Point of Beginning: It means exactly

Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association

what you think it does: the starting point for the survey.

Real Property Report: A real property report reveals the location of improvements relative to property boundaries. Not to be confused with pretend or imaginary property reports.

on their

100th Anniversary and

Survey Evidence: The location of one-metre-long pins driven into the ground to mark boundaries. If you don’t want a huge fine, don’t pull the pin.

Annual General Meeting www.raymacsurveys.ca Calgary 403-259-5423

Total Station: Optical equipment used to take measurements. Because you can’t just eyeball it.

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SPOTLIGHT

BY ROBERT RADOVANOVIC RADOVANOVIC;; AS TOLD TO STEPHANIE SPARKS

Surveying the Distinction Geomatics is the science of measuring things on Earth. Land surveying is one application that puts it to extensive and valuable use

OCTORS, PHARMACISTS AND DENTISTS EACH HAVE THEIR

own differences in the qualifications and experience they have and the type of work they do. They have specific titles because they have specific roles. When a person has a cavity, he doesn’t call a doctor. If he has a question about his heart medication, he doesn’t call a dentist. These professionals can be categorized under “health sciences,” but they’re not one and the same. Each is a specialized job. The same goes for geomatics, the science of measurement. This large umbrella covers many different roles, each with its own area of expertise. One particular role that’s familiar to many is that of the land surveyor, who specializes in uncovering the boundaries that define interests in land. The science of geomatics has been around for a long time. The ancient Egyptians were the first surveyors to mark out fields when the Nile River flooded. Since then, the practice has evolved and has been adopted throughout the world. These days, geomatics is a broad subject that encompasses all types of spatial measurement. The data that is collected is then used to create information systems that are easy for individuals to interpret. Two everyday examples of this are MapQuest and Google Maps. Geomatics is what led to the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and it’s geomatics that led to the ability to input your GPS position on a moving map in your vehicle.

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Geomatics is a supporting science. The information collected can be used in any application that requires a spatial distribution of data. Even fields such as sociology benefit from geomatics. For example, with the data from a sociological study, geomatics can help illustrate the number of people in a specific salary bracket populating an area of the city in an easy-to-understand map. It can also provide tools to answer questions such as, “How many people with salaries below $40,000 per year live within 300 metres of bus stops?” Geomatics provides the background tools to make it simple for scientists to display their data and make inferences from it. For those with more immediate interests, geomatics can be used to measure anything on Earth. This focus on measurement is at the core of what the science does. It can be used to find out the perimeter of a parcel of land, the length of a coastline or the area of an expanse of trees. Different tools to make these measurements are available, ranging from simple tapes to expensive GPS setups to imaging satellites located hundreds of kilometres above the Earth. A layperson may argue that it sounds a lot like land surveying – but it’s not. Land surveying is certainly a specialty subset of geomatics, but geomatics is the general science that covers what land surveyors do. Land surveying is used to determine where a person’s boundaries lie. It’s the legal side of geomatics. From a municipal perspective, landowners can enlist

MAP QUEST: Students at the U of C study geomatics, then can narrow their coursework to become professional land surveyors

professionally recognized land surveyors to determine where lot boundaries are located. Land surveying takes the science of geomatics to measure boundaries and show ownership. If geomatics is the science of measurement, then land surveying is the application of that science. There’s a whole legal aspect behind land surveying. Anyone can open a book and learn about geomatics, but to actually be able to call themselves a land surveyor and put what they’ve learned into practice requires that individual to be licensed. Land surveyors need to know how to take the measurements and understand the legal implications behind those measurements. Should a legal dispute erupt between land owners, a land surveyor can be called in as an expert witness but they

Land surveying takes the science of geomatics to measure boundaries and show ownership. don’t actually define the boundary. Instead they’re making the measurement to determine the boundaries – the judge will make the final decision. In this way, land surveying is not unlike police work: investigators collect the evidence, but it’s the courts that render a legal decision. The distinction between land surveying and geomatics is an important one to make. It’s all about the accuracy of the terms. If a person requires a land surveyor, they will hopefully not hire someone who

has only read a couple of books on geomatics or someone else who knows how to wield a measuring tape. Surveying is so much more than that. Only a surveyor recognized by the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association can practise in the province. Dr. Robert Radovanovic, P.Eng., A.L.S., C.L.S.

WELL SCHOOLED University of Calgary Department of Geomatics Engineering Schulich School of Engineering 2500 University Drive NW Calgary AB T2N 1N4 Tel: 403-220-5834 www.geomatics.ucalgary.ca

www.alsa.ab.ca

A LBERTA BOUNDARIES 2 0 0 9

Laying Down the Lines BY SHANNON SUTHERLAND

Forget the wagon trains, railways and six-shooters. The West was won with an axe and lengths of survey chain

HEIR OCCUPATION IS DIVISIVE IN NATURE, BUT PEACE AND

order are most often the outcomes of their work. Historically, land surveyors in Alberta were the individuals who ventured into uncharted territory, so those who followed would not have to do the same. After surveyors had done their jobs, those who came after would know where they were standing, where they were going and where they had been. “The survey was required before Western Canada could be made available for settlement,” says Gord Olsson, a retired land surveyor who is now helping to organize a travelling exhibit on the impact land surveyors have had in shaping the history of the province. “It has been said that no other land survey system in the world equals the Dominion Lands Survey System for precision and uniformity over such a large area of land, and no other comparable body of surveyors was assembled, trained and deployed with such focus and dedication to carry out the survey. Yet, to me, it is remarkable that it is hardly mentioned, if mentioned at all, in books on the history of Canada.” The Dominion Lands Survey was a simple and accurate method of land identification. Its design was based on a rectangular system laid out from meridians and baselines conforming to parallels of latitude. The survey covered the largest area in the world dealt with by one comprehensive survey system, accord-

ing to information from the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association. In fact, a world record was set in 1883 when the Dominion Land Surveyors subdivided an area covering 27 million acres (more than 10 million hectares). This was the largest subdivision survey of its kind ever carried out in the entire world in a single year. Between 1880 and 1920, more than 3,000 townships, which is more than 440,000 quarter-sections, were surveyed for settlement in Alberta. “The goal was to establish a complete grid of meridians and baselines before filling it in with extensive township subdivision,” says Judy Larmour, author of Laying Down the Lines, a book commissioned by ALSA on the history of land surveying in Alberta. The quick construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885, saw the Dominion Lands Survey begin township subdivision on the lands granted to the railway. Following that, surveyed dominion lands were to be opened to the homesteaders who would flood the West by the turn of the century. “This involved literally chaining out distances on the ground and marking the corners of sections within townships,” explains Larmour. “Until the surveyor’s township subdivision plan was registered with land titles, no homesteader could take out a homestead application.”

www.alsa.ab.ca

miles. Some surveyors had to make arrangements for The work was as dangerous as it was meticulous, scows [flat-bottomed boats] to carry freight at Athabasca not to mention onerous. In Vision of An Ordered Land, James MacGregor quotes an early surveyor’s field journal. Landing, and teams of horses and sleighs or dog trains for later winter work.” She says other occupational hazards He writes, “As a protection against black flies, we are included setting up and tearing down camps in the wilusing Stockholm tar and sweet oil mixed in equal parts; derness, walking huge distances carrying gear and dealthis mixture we rub over our hands, face and neck. By this, our appearance is of a hybrid between the devil and ing with bugs, snow and storms. “Once they got there, they had to clear the lines a white man…. For the mosquitoes this is only a mockery, through the bush with an axe in order to measure and for the oil only greases their nozzles and the tar gives mark the ground,” says Larmour. them a good footing to ram in their infernal append“One of the greatest challenges was surveying mounages.” Surviving brutally unforgiving weather, infestations of insects and hard physical labour was often a daily ritual for land surveyors. Many early surveys were done to almost the Larmour says the greatest challenges facsame degree of accuracy that is possible with ing land surveyors in the years before the First World War were the trips to northern today’s modern technology. Alberta. “Simply to get where the surveys were to be undertaken required hazardous tain areas. This required the use of photo-topographical journeys,” she says. Survey parties had to be hired and surveying that involved taking views from established outfitted to withstand any circumstances nature would fixed points on mountaintops.” Surveyors had to first provide. Planning meant land surveyors and their teams make arduous mountain ascents and, once on high, had to prepare for every aspect of the expedition, from triangulate to establish latitude and longitude. calculating how much “grub” the party would need for When the Dominion Lands Survey started, surveyors months on end, to determining how many iron posts and measured distances using the Gunter’s chain, which was other pieces of equipment they would require to comnamed after an English mathematician who designed his plete the task. The surveyor “had to check all his equipchain to be 66 feet long, including 100 steel links so that ment and instruments before going into the field,” says Larmour. “He had to order, purchase and load all the sup- 10 square chains would equal one acre. The chain was heavy and clumsy, making it difficult to move around plies required for a journey that would last hundreds of

ALSA: A Line of the Times

1920 to 1930

1900 to 1910

Alberta becomes an equal partner in confederation when it gains administration of public lands and natural resources in the province by the Constitution Act of 1930. Future wealth of the province is assured as mineral, oil and gas and forest resources become vested in Alberta.

In September 1905, the Province of Alberta is founded and, according to the provisions of the British North America Act, the government of the new province becomes responsible for the administration of real property law within its territory.

1910 to 1920

The Alberta Land Surveyors Act is passed in 1910 and the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association is born.

A LBERTA BOUNDARIES 2 0 0 9

1930 to 1940

The Great Depression arrived and a dispirited attitude is much in evidence. Membership of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association steadily drops and work is scarce.

and difficult to tighten. Steel tape eventually replaced it. While the chains and tape measure distance, a transit is used to measure horizontal and vertical angles and to produce straight lines, explains Larmour. In the 1980s, electronic transits came into use. These are basically telescopes that revolve around a horizontal circle and a vertical circle. “Both the horizontal circle and vertical circle are graduated into 360 degrees – like a protractor,” she says. Total stations measure angles and distances, recording the measurements electronically. “Finally, the use of computers cut out hand-production of maps and today sophisticated GPS units assist with establishing positions in many instances,” says Larmour. She says that while “things are easier and quicker,” many early surveys were done to almost the same degree of accuracy that is possible with today’s modern technology. “At the end of the day, the basic principles and practice of land surveying have changed little,” says Larmour. There has always been a need to use a system to organize the development of land in Alberta – and since it is rich with natural resources, the land has an incredible amount of value in this province. Land surveyors were instrumental in developing irrigation for agriculture, for example. A surveyor’s information was essential to find the best location for the diversions and dams. And then the oil started flowing. Alberta Land Surveyors were at the forefront. After

Leduc No. 1, the oil companies rushed to hire them to determine the position of well sites, which were tied into the established township system. “Well site surveys were followed by surveys to mark out flow lines and battery sites,” Larmour says. “Surveyors next marked out a right-of-way for a pipeline to carry the crude to its destination – ultimately one of the refineries in Calgary and Edmonton.” Eventually exploration moved north and where the oil companies went, surveyors preceded them. A new challenge waited surveyors in the north. “The township system had not been marked out in parts of northwest Alberta, which made calculating the position of a well site difficult because there were no survey monuments on the ground,” Larmour explains. “Surveyors were able to establish vertical and horizontal control positions from which they could work, so that seismic crews could locate shot holes and ‘record’ ground elevations they’d use for gathering geophysical data.” Once the oil company decided on a drilling location, surveyors established accurate coordinates for the well site and boundaries of the lease. “Without marked township corners, surveyors had to work from the nearest baseline, often at a considerable distance, to tie the well site into the township system,” Larmour says. “This meant cutting long lines through the bush, but the exactness of the survey ensured the precision of the drilling location and the potential success of a well.” The equipment and instrumentation changed little

1940 to 1950

1990 to 2000

Oil is discovered at Leduc in 1947. It’s the most important factor in the evolution of surveying in Alberta in 50 years. The township system in Alberta provides a framework for managing oil and gas rights. Surveys are also required for surface leases on well sites, pipelines and related facilities.

1960 to 1970

New technology continues to arrive. Electronic distance measuring instruments such as the geodimeter and tellurometer become available for everyday use and computers arrive on the scene.

1950 to 1960

In 1953 Swedish surveyors develop the geodimeter, the first electronic distance meter using laser beams or radio frequencies to measure distances. This instrument reduces the time required to measure baselines from weeks to hours with increased accuracy.

1970 to 1980

The Global Positioning System (GPS) becomes the only fully functional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). By 1994, a complete constellation of 24 medium-earth orbit satellites is in use. The system enables a GPS receiver to determine location, speed, direction and time.

In the 1970s, surveyors become involved in developing land information systems and geographic information systems (GIS). Survey control systems are implemented by surveyors to support GIS.

2000 to present

2005 marks 100 years since the Province of Alberta entered confederation, and the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association publishes Laying Down the Lines: A History of Land Surveying in Alberta as a centennial project. Numerous initiatives to increase labour mobility are underway.

www.alsa.ab.ca

VEY I NG AND MA P SUR PI

CHNOLO G IE TE

TA SOCIE ER TY

The

ALBERTA SOCIETY OF SURVEYING & MAPPING TECHNOLOGIES

values our unique relationship with the

until the last several decades and Olsson says that, while it’s easy to focus on the ALBERTA LAND great achievements of early surveyors, in the last few decades the industry has SURVEYORS’ made impressive accomplishments as ASSOCIATION well. For example, an undergraduate and looks forward to another 100 years of success. degree program in Surveying Engineering was created at the University of Calgary in 1980 and, in 1987, a Professional Audit Branch was established within ALSA. “Prior to then, surveyors’ plans were examined by gov000.ASSMT_1-6V_nBL.indd 1 2/12/09 4:17:24 PM ernment employees,” says Olsson. “In 1987, this responsibility was given to the COMMUNITIES TRANSPORTATION BUILDINGS INFRASTRUCTURE profession.” The work isn’t quite as dangerous as it Providing Geomatics Services in used to be, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t Canada for Over 50 Years! an adventure. “Today, surveyors stay in modern hotels, travel to remote work Service Offerings: sites by helicopter and take measure► Oilfield Surveys ments using GPS,” says Olsson. “They obtain survey plans and title informa► Legal Surveys tion instantaneously from government ► Bathymetric Surveys offices by Internet, often through satel► Mapping & GIS Services lite communication. And they can send their survey observations to their office ► Engineering & Construction Surveys the same way so that survey plans and ► GPS Surveys reports can be prepared and sent to clients electronically within a few days.” Maybe the most fascinating aspect of land surveying is how irreversibly entangled the work of today’s land surveyors is with the work of yesterday’s surveyors. Larmour’s book says: “Surveyors are dependent on the job done by the surveyors who went before them. In a sense, they are historians as they examine old

To learn more, visit us at www.mmm.ca

plans and archaeologists as they scrape away layers of dirt. They always seek the original mark laid down by their predecessors, and tie into a position established in the past to create the boundaries and property parcels of tomorrow.”

Here’s Looking at You Surveyors are accustomed to being the ones doing the scrutinizing, but soon it is they who will be surveilled. The Alber ta L and Sur veyors’ Association is organizing a travelling exhibit on the history of land surveying in the province. The exhibit will be displayed in museums across Alberta, and ALSA representatives hope it will become a resource for visiting school classes. It will consist of story panels, display cases and a surveyor’s tent from 1910, complete with bedding, personal effects and survey equipment of the day. “For many years, the ALSA has had a collection of land surveying artifacts,” says Gord Olsson, a retired land surveyor and project organizer. “In 2002, ALSA adopted a collections policy in support of travelling thematic historical exhibits.” The exhibit will soon be ready for the public in 2009. Stay tuned to www. alsa.ab.ca for dates and locations.

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Precision is the cornerstone of longevityâ&#x20AC;Ś Congratulations on your 100th anniversay!

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www.swg.ca Photograph by Jeff Miles (System Administrator)

Calling all gearheads and historians. Take a look at what the surveyors of yesteryear called high tech. Despite all the bells and whistles of modern surveying equipment, the survey evidence indicates that professionals of the past measured land almost as accurately as their counterparts do today. Any bets for the must-haves in the tool kit of tomorrow’s surveyor? Transit – It consists of a small

1909

Past, Present and Future

mounted telescope that rotates horizontally and vertically

Field notebook – Surveyors need to protect their records from the damp in the ﬁeld

Survey posts – Wooden posts, or occasionally piles of rock, commonly mark boundaries. Eventually metre-long metal pins will supplant these

A LBE RTA BOUNDARIES 2 0 0 9

Chain – The standard measure for surveying, Gunter’s Chain, has just been replaced with steel bands measuring distance in feet

Total station – It measures distances and angles by aiming a beam of infrared light at a prism, supported by a tripod

Univisor – A spectral headset that records data as the ﬁeld tech views it and allows speech-to-text input

2059

Global positioning system – Surveyors use more precise GPS units than those available in the hardware store. It’s just one tool in the kit

2009

Safety equipment – Surveyor teams in the ﬁeld wear hard hats, safety vests and steel-toed boots. Bug and bear spray where appropriate

Monumarker staff – Injects the boundary with nanoprobe survey markers that send continuous data to the global network. Added feature: stun laser for bothersome wildlife

Multibelt – It holds ﬁeld items such as food pellet dispenser, sonic grooming system and expandabode shelter

Laptop computer – As iconic today as a transit was in the past, a surveyor spends more quality time with a computer than any other piece of equipment

Versabound boots – Grip terrain as steep as 90˚ and take three-metre strides ILLUSTRATION BY RODRIGO LÓPEZ OROZCO

Cellphone with camera – A land surveyor is never out of reach. Cameras come in handy for documenting survey evidence

Transicorder – It downloads data from the ﬁeld team’s univisor, allowing multidimensional interpretation

www.alsa.ab.ca

An Educated Profession

BY DAVID DICENZO

While the basic tenets remain the same, the profession of surveying has morphed. Schools are catching up

FEW THINGS HAVE CHANGED IN LAND SURVEYING

since Bruce Gudim entered the field over a quarter of a century ago – especially on the technological front. When Gudim began his career back in 1982, surveyors were in the middle of a gradual transition from making their measurements with steel tapes to using electronic distance measuring equipment. The tapes were survey chains 300 feet in length. Gudim says that using them – especially rolling them up – is an old-school skill that would likely be foreign to today’s newer surveyors. “It was neat to be a part of that change,” says Gudim, now the vice-president of Alberta firm Maltais Geomatics Inc. “In those old days, the surveyor’s equipment would consist of a plumb bob strapped to their hip at all times and a survey chain. Somewhere along the line, the plumb bob went by the wayside.” So did the survey chain. Surveyors learned to use the newer electronic distance measuring equipment. Now another transition is underway and EDMs are being phased out, replaced by high-tech global positioning systems. “We transitioned from using survey tapes to EDMs to the point where we’d notice that a week might go by since we’d last used our survey chain,” recalls Gudim of the changes that took place in the early 1980s. “Today, it’s exactly the same with EDMs. I’ll ask crews, ‘When’s the

A LBERTA BOUNDARIES 2 0 09

last time you used your EDM equipment?’ They might say a week or a month because they’ve been able to improvise and use their GPS for almost everything they do.” While the tools of the trade have evolved, the things Gudim has always loved about land surveying remain constant. He remembers the late 1970s, when he was studying physics at the University of Alberta. Gudim saw a want ad in the Edmonton Journal looking for land surveyors. Gudim, who didn’t really see himself as much of an academic, decided to switch from physics to the U of A’s surveying program. What attracted him to the field was the variety of things a surveyor would be tasked to do. “There are many different types of projects a surveyor does in the field plus there are many different areas they can work within Alberta,” he says. The variety of landscapes a surveyor encounters in the province appealed to him, as did the city work. “Sometimes, I’d be working on a construction project. In those environments, the surveyor is typically given a lot of respect on the job site,” Gudim says. It’s nice to have a job where you get that kind of respect. “But other times, I’d be working in a wooded area, far from human habitation, which is a whole different experience.” The job comes with challenges. Challenges, not only in what skills and aptitudes the profession demands, but also

TEST TIME: University of Calgary Geomatics students put their new-found knowledge to practical use

the logistical challenges of getting to and carrying out a job, because some sites are remote and difficult to access. But Gudim says that depending on who’s working on a site, the logistical challenges can be part of the fun. “In my early career, those challenges often became competitions with other survey crews,” he says. “You compete to see who can be the most productive and do the most work in a given day. Sometimes, they become physical competitions where it’s really a foot race to get to a job site.” LAND SURVEYORS IN ALBERTA ARE A FAIRLY EXCLUSIVE

club. Bruce Gudim is one of approximately 370 surveyors in the province. One of the primary sources of Alberta Land Surveyors these days is the University of Calgary’s geomatics program (part of the Schulich School of Engineering), which has been in existence for 30 years. Guided by a staff of about 20 specialized professors, the U of C’s undergraduate engineering class consists of 45 to

50 students per year, with anywhere from 15 to 25 eventually going on into the surveying field. “We’ve been fortunate to have many innovative students,” says Prof. Mike Barry, who teaches fourth-year survey law and a geodetic engineering course at the university. “In recent years, we have had a lot of students go through land surveying.” The U of C’s geomatics program is excellent training for surveyors in Alberta. Approved by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board and the Canada Council of Land Surveyors, the university boasts a large department that offers a lot of technical electives for students who are interested in surveying or other aspects of geomatics. Students can undertake practicums in the field while studying. Gudim says that the nice thing about doing the practicum at the U of C is that a student has the opportunity to get out, work the year with a survey company and learn about the industry. “The hope of the company is that the students will come

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ON THE JOB: Bruce Gudim, left, with Jeremy Park. Park is a U of C graduate, currently articling to Gudim’s colleague Doug Sharpe

back once they graduate,” Gudim says. “There’s a win for both parties.” As students near the completion of their courses and begin to enter the field, mentoring becomes an integral part of their experience. That’s no different from when Gudim came up the ranks in the early 1980s. Gudim says that a former Alberta Transportation employee named Tom Holt was well known in the Edmonton area and throughout the province for the guidance he offered to aspiring land surveyors. “He has a special place in the lives of a lot of land surveyors,” says Gudim. “He would meet up with us on Saturdays, taking his own time to sit down and chat with the pupils about the profession.” “When students graduated, he would give them Alberta Transportation projects to work on. That mentoring process was very instructive for a lot of us.” The pay-it-forward approach remains strong in surveying today. Articling is important and while young surveyors typically article to one principal, many will transfer to different principals to obtain experience in different areas. And when the time comes for the gruelling oral examination surveyors must pass before they are certified, students will sit before a panel of Alberta Land Surveyors, who try to duplicate the exam experience in what’s known as a “mock oral.” Larger firms will arrange that for their students, while smaller firms will often accomplish the same

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by collaborating with other firms. “Pupils find that process really instructive,” says Gudim. “It’s very similar to the real oral. You sit down in front of a half dozen people you’ve never met in your life. You get some tutelage on how to handle yourself at the oral.” GUDIM LEARNED FROM HIS MENTOR, HOLT, THAT PROFES-

sionals must partner with surveyors of the past by uncovering their work. He tries to impress the same lesson on his protogés. Both men stress the significance of finding traces of the original surveying evidence, placed by surveyors in the past, and the work required to uncover that evidence. It’s an ability that is just as important to a land surveyor today as it was decades ago. “One of the things that surveyors take pride in is their ability to be sleuths,” says Gudim. Finding survey monuments on a piece of property – the three-foot square pit, 18 inches deep, with a five-foot square mound that governs a boundary – is always a fun challenge for a land surveyor. “It takes a great deal of effort and labour and sleuthing to determine that location,” Gudim says. “You can’t shorten the work any better than you could 30 years ago. The shovel is still your friend.” For Gudim, finding evidence is just one of the many intriguing things surveyors do in the field or in the office. “The challenges are vast,” he says of the profession. “In some respect, you’re like James Bond. To be James Bond, you have to be good at a lot of things.”

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1/7/09 4:22:37 PM

A MOBILE WORKFORCE Of the 370 professional land surveyors currently working in Alberta, 17 received their training outside of the borders of Wild Rose Country. That might not seem like a large number but as the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association executive director Brian Munday points out, it’s about five per cent of the working population. Consider that just eight years ago, that number would have been zero. “I think we’ll start to see more people move more seamlessly from one province to another,” says Munday, making reference to the much-improved labour mobility legislation that is having a significant impact on the profession. In the 1990s, the federal government and the provinces signed the Agreement on Internal Trade, which required that professions get together and set up an agreement among the provinces in which they set a level playing field for the bare entry requirements into a particular profession. In 2001, the land surveying profession signed its own agreement. The move expanded the opportunities of people in the field. “The key to the mutual recognition agreement was that provinces would not question the professional designations conferred by other provinces,” explains Ron Hall, executive vice president, geomatics at Focus Surveys Limited Partnership. Since the MRA, all surveyors registered in other provinces or at the federal level are deemed to have met the minimum requirements. “End of story,” Hall says. “But that was not always the case.” The ability to move freely took another leap forward in 2006 when Alberta and British Columbia signed the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA). It has proven to be a groundbreaking deal meant to remove barriers surrounding trade, investment and labour mobility. In 2008, the federal government and the provinces amended the Agreement on Internal Trade to further enhance labour mobility across Canada for land surveyors coming to Alberta. This means the lengthy process of four exams and three project reports is no longer required. “All you have to do is write one exam that proves you have local knowledge in our area and around our

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statutes,” says Hall. “It’s one more step towards labour mobility.” Munday believes that the original Mutual Recognition Agreement and TILMA have had a hugely positive impact in Alberta. “Alberta has been the leader pushing for increased mobility,” he says. Munday says he likes what he has seen from the out-of-province imports who have entered Alberta’s land surveying community. “As we’ve seen those members come in as Alberta Land Surveyors, there is a tremendous comfort level that they’ve been a beneﬁt to this province,” he says. “They have been involved in associations, committees and activities. They have really become a part of the association and that’s been a beneﬁt.” As more agreements pertaining to labour mobility are struck (for example, Ontario and Quebec are trying to establish their own version of TILMA), the result will be a greater ability for professionals to pursue work outside their own backyards. Hall makes it clear that there are, however, challenges in doing it right. “There is no doubt in my mind that labour mobility and access issues are going to become bigger with governments,” he says. “They want bigger trade areas. The balancing act for us is that we are self-regulating and self-legislating with a mandate to serve and protect the public. The public relies on a land surveyor no differently than they do an engineer or a lawyer. How do we protect their interests? “The job is to make sure the people we bring in can do that and meet the criteria. If we don’t, that right will be taken away from us.”

Serving Alberta Since 1985

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Urban and Rural Subdivisions Municipal Road and Infrastructure Land Development Consultants Real Property Reports Facility Layouts Topographic Surveys

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The geomatics engineering program at the Schulich School of Engineering is the proud alma mater of 117 of the 370 active members of the Alberta Land Surveyors' Association. Congratulations on your 100th anniversary!

1/8/09 4:24:07 PM

IN THE FIELD: A two-man crew and a trainee conduct a survey in southern Alberta on behalf of Focus Surveys

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Eyes to the Patch t

HEY ARE MODERN-DAY EXPLORERS, SLOGGING

through some of the most inhospitable and remote terrain in Alberta to map out potential well sites, access roads and pipeline routes. Land surveyors have a long history in Alberta’s oilpatch and have helped put the province’s energy industry on the map. “We are the shock troops of the oil and gas industry. We are usually the first people on the ground and we’re working under some pretty rough conditions, trying to create order where there was none before,” says John Haggerty of Can-Am Geomatics, a Calgary-based consulting firm that specializes in land surveys, engineering, mapping and geomatics for the oil and gas industry. “We are an integral part of the machine that keeps Alberta running.” The involvement of land surveyors in the oilpatch seems pretty straightforward. If an oil and gas outfit wants to establish a well site, for example, it contacts a company such as Can-Am Geomatics and describes where it wants the well. Can-Am sends surveying personnel into the field to make sure it’s physically possible to locate a well on the site. Surveying employees mark out where a well could be constructed and, back in the office, land surveyors draft a plan that the oil and gas company will send to various government bodies. The information cultivated by land surveyors includes the boundaries of each site – down to the centimetre –

BY JIM VEENBAAS

topographical features of each location, overhead and underground structures, elevations and information related to water distribution. The Energy Resources Conservation Board requires that information before it will approve any proposed project. Oil and gas companies also use the information for their Geographic Information Systems, the databases that allow companies to electronically map facility locations, pipelines, well sites and other related structures. Surveyors map out plans for each of the thousands of wells drilled in Alberta each year, as well as the pipelines used to move the product and the access roads to get to the sites. But their role exists a little apart from their clients’ main concerns. First, land surveyors offer a legal framework in that their plans on behalf of their client are official documents that cannot be disregarded. Second, they satisfy a regulatory function, facilitating communication between the oil companies and the regulatory bodies. Regulatory officials can adequately address environmental concerns with a surveyor’s report in hand. It slows down the process, offering time for checks and balances. It’s a safeguard to the public. “And this is at the request of the energy sector,” says Haggerty. “It’s in their best interest to have a third party, a professional body with the necessary expertise and a code of ethics, one that obligates them to be responsible to the public.”

PHOTO COURTESY FOCUS SURVEYS LIMITED

Surveyors operate at an arm’s length from their big oil clients. They keep an eye to the ground and safeguard the public

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1500s. The equipment has advanced tremendously in the last 30 years and surveyors now rely overwhelmingly on with their unique set of skills and abilities: part mathemareal-time GPS, which use satellites to determine the exact tician, part computer whiz and part Paul Bunyan. While location of any spot. Equally profound has been the changthe classic image of a loner behind a tripod in the back ing political environment. Government departments now country is one that most surveyors today would prefer to require much more information about each site and have downplay, the field conditions in the oil and gas sector are stricter environmental standards. pretty tough. The isolation, terrain and extreme weather “The actual information gathering is such a breeze. can make even the simplest job a logistical nightmare. But, When I started in the ’70s, you might spend three or four at some level, most surveyors do have an affinity for the days at one well site in the bush. Now you’d be hard-pressed outdoor workday. to spend more than two days in the bush and that includes “Working in an urban area is a whole bunch of fun, but line cutting. A well on the prairie may have taken you a full not as much fun as working in the bush. When you think day in the ’70s. Today you might do up to five or six in a of the early explorers like David Thompson and John day,” says Wallace. Palliser, they were doing survey work. What we are doing now is not that much different – 100 to 200 years later,” says John Wallace, president of If you’re afraid to get your hands dirty or your Can-Am, which employs 200 people in five feet wet, you’re in the wrong business. When offices across Western Canada. “We are still out there in remote areas you’re out in the bush, you have to be prepared gathering information not only on the posito be chief cook, bottle washer and surveyor. tion of boundaries, but also with respect to topography and surface improvements. It’s thrilling to be out in the bush and to find original survey It’s not just the speed of work that’s spiked in the last evidence that was planted in the 1800s. It’s a special feeling 30 years, either. The amount of information that surveyknowing that you are the first person to lay eyes on that ing teams process has changed. “The regulatory bodies site since the surveyors of old were there more than 100 in Alberta and across the West have become hungrier for years ago.” “The big thing is orderly development,” explains more and more data, and they want more of it to be Bruce Winton, president of McElhanney Land Surveys. provided exclusively by land surveyors. The information “We have to account for all the regulatory requirements that used to be included on a well site plan doesn’t even in a plan. come close to resembling the amount of information If it’s a well site, we’re picking up all the natural terrain you need today.” features and anything that will have an impact on the enviOne of the biggest challenges facing surveyors out in ronment. For a pipeline, the biggest things are crossings and route selection.” McElhanney is an Edmonton-based WELL BEING: Before any well is drilled or access road firm with 380 staff members across Western Canada. cleared, teams like this from Focus Surveys get the measure of a property Winton and his colleagues have to be intimately familiar with the various government departments that have restrictions on the development of oil and gas. “The information we gather helps determine if each site meets those regulations,” he says. “We deal with drilling engineers, pipeline engineers and land people. It’s almost a partnership you have with your client. They know what to expect from you and you know what they need. One thing about being a land surveyor is that you serve your client, but your responsibility is to the public. You’re an impartial party and you have to respect the interests of everyone involved.” The tools of the trade have changed dramatically since Wallace and Winton started their careers in the 1970s. At the time, the most sophisticated instrument was the theodolite, technology originally developed in the late

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PHOTOS COURTESY FOCUS SURVEYS LIMITED

OIL AND GAS COMPANIES HAVE TO COUNT ON SURVEYORS

MAKING INROADS: A survey team conducts a topographic study that the client will use to expand an existing haul road in northern Alberta

the field is accessing the proposed locations. Haggerty is based in Grande Prairie and does a lot of his work in the foothills south of the city. The terrain is daunting, to say the least, but it takes more than bad weather, steep slopes and thick bush to stop surveyors from pushing through to their target, even in locations that ultimately prove unsuitable for drilling. “Some of the conditions are really hairy and not everyone likes to forge out there into the bush. I’ve waded through a swamp and waist-deep water. It can be really rugged out there,” Haggerty says. “When everything is finally done and ready to go on a site like that, you could probably drive a car in there.” To enjoy those extreme conditions requires a rare breed – people who place equal value on knowledge and formal education, with a love of the great outdoors and a real sense of adventure. “You are talking about individuals, almost without exception, who know the backend of a chainsaw. How many other professionals do you see out there cutting line? You have to be made differently to do that,” says Wallace. If you’re afraid to get your hands dirty or your feet wet, you’re in the wrong business. When you’re out in the bush, you have to be prepared to be chief cook, bottle washer and surveyor. “I’ve always believed in the value of education and I was always strong in math,” Wallace says, “but I really like the

outdoors and I just couldn’t see myself working only in an office when I finished school. For the people who like that, there’s no life like it.” Like Wallace, Haggerty now oversees his clients’ projects from his Grande Prairie office but some of his fondest memories also involve the situations he has faced in the field. Increasingly, surveyors are in managerial roles and technicians are in the field. And the surveyors of today spend more time in front of a computer than

TALES FROM THE FIELD One of the last ﬁeld jobs John Wallace of Can-Am Geomatics did was surveying an area north of Fort Chipewyan in 1987. The job required Wallace and two other men to spend a week in the bush, taking measurements and making boundaries for the federal government. Trouble started even before they arrived at their bush camp, when the pontoon airplane that was to take them there couldn’t get up in the air. “By the time the pilot shut down his engines, we ended up drifting onto the rocks and puncturing a pontoon. We had to jump into the lake to lighten the load and lift the plane off the rocks to get it up on shore. We were up to our chests in the lake with ice floating around us,” recalls Wallace.

behind a tripod. “Still,” says Haggerty, “early in their careers, young surveyors are expected to spend time in the field. After all, they’ll be managing field crews later.” Other surveyors like the outdoor fieldwork so much that they start their own businesses or stay with smaller outfits where they are virtually guaranteed time in the field. As Wallace says, there’s just no life like it.

Undaunted, the men pushed on by engaging another, larger plane that could handle the load – only to discover their communication equipment wasn’t working. They spent a week in the bush, cut off from civilization, with no means of communicating to the outside world. They didn’t need to radio for emergency pickup – quite the opposite. “The pilot came to pick us up, but we needed more time to complete the survey, so we left a note in the cookhouse saying we needed another day and to come back tomorrow. Sure enough, the next day the plane came in and picked us up,” says Wallace. “I think that’s when I came to the conclusion that I should spend more time in the ofﬁce. Sometimes I think you have to be nuts to do this job.” But he means it in a good way.

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TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Robert Wallace spends most of his time in the ofﬁce, where most of a land surveyor’s equipment is found

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Town Limits Urban surveyors might not have to stare down a grizzly but they face their own challenges BY TRICIA RADISON PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN GAUCHER

T’S 10:30 A.M. ON A TUESDAY AND THE WORLD IS AT

work. With the temperature a good 10 degrees below zero, it’s definitely toque and gloves weather, but the sky is a swath of cheerful blue. Cracking branches, chattering squirrels and bird song fill the air. A survey crew of two is setting up for work behind the garage of a residential property across the street from the Elbow River in Calgary. It’s a street of expensive and relatively new homes on the large, heavily treed lots of an older area. The crew works with care and accuracy; they aren’t rushing to get the job done or hurrying to get the next step over with. Instead, they carefully imple-

ment the proper set of checks to ensure their work is done correctly. Crew chief Ben Woodland interrupts himself briefly to point out a blue jay swooping onto a branch, then returns his attention to rodman Marc Michaud. The two often team up and their ability to work well with one another is apparent in their easy conversation and quick decision-making. Woodland and Michaud began the workday at 8 a.m., meeting at the office to receive the plans for their projects for the day. Each day is different. They may be surveying large, bare parcels of land for subdivision, urban

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commercial projects such as high-rise office or condoproperty, so the surveyors already know that these pins minium towers, acreages outside the city or residential accurately mark the property lines. Without this lucky properties like this one in the city. “The fact that I can happenstance, the surveyors would have to take extra do all sorts of work makes it pretty interesting,” says steps – digging up and measuring the pins to ensure Woodland, who’s been in the surveying business for they are actual survey pins – to ensure that the property a decade. lines are valid. This record is evidence that property The owner of the property they’re now on wants a owners can rely on when they undertake landscaping, comprehensive survey detailing the placement of all additions and renovations. structures, utilities and trees on the lot to help in the “People believe that [the location of a boundary] is an process of obtaining a development permit. As part absolute. It’s not an absolute,” says Robert Wallace, presiof the in-depth survey, Woodland and Michaud have dent of Global Surveys Group and past-president of the already surveyed the yards on either side of the client’s Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association. boundaries. Today they are focusing on the client’s property. Behind those iconic tripods, survey personnel Their first step is to locate the survey pins, or survey evidence. Surveyors have are taking extremely precise measurements planted these pins in the ground years ago from carefully determined positions to create to mark property lines. The location of the pins is marked on the plan but they aren’t an accurate blueprint of the location. It’s a always where they’re supposed to be. (See numbers game and the numbers have to match. sidebar page 43.) While Woodland creates a sketch of the client’s property, Michaud uses a metal detector to scan “There are mathematical solutions but in older areas the ground at the location indicated by the plans, lookthere may be conflicting survey pins, so there may be ing for the pins. The pins are often accessed via private various mathematical solutions to choose from,” property, not always the property of the actual client. explains Wallace. “We try to determine how the original Although surveyors are legally entitled to enter private survey plan was done and conduct the new survey in property, they are aware that people have concerns about accordance with that. Sometimes it’s not cut and dried.” possible damage to their yards and land. Out of respect, The amount of deductive reasoning required for they knock on doors to inform homeowners that they surveying is surprising to most members of the general need to go onto the property and dig. public because they often don’t know what surveyors Most people are happy to allow the surveyors on their actually do. In fact, research shows that many of the land after learning that they will carefully fill the hole people driving past survey teams think that they are and replace the patch of sod they’ve removed to gain just carrying out rote tasks. access to the pin. Often, the conversation becomes an That wasn’t always the prevailing image of the surveyor. opportunity for the homeowner to learn where the A hundred and fifty years ago, the land surveyor was one boundaries of the property are and get information of the most important people in Canada. “When the about the survey process. Dominion Land Surveyor came to Fort Edmonton or Fort Today there are no problems and Michaud and Calgary, he was treated like a god because he was the Woodland easily find the pins. Michaud removes the guy that determined land boundaries and would measod and sets it and the dirt he’s dug up onto a small sure out homesteads,” explains Brian Stecyk of Rose tarp for later replacement. “We try to leave the ground Country Communications. as we found it,” Michaud says, “out of respect for the Rose Country Communications undertook research to property owner.” find out how the public views land surveyors today. The In this case, the validity of the pins is not in question; results show that the public’s understanding of the field the company Woodland and Michaud work for, Global had become murky. Surveys Group Inc., recently surveyed a neighbouring “We did the first research in the early 1990s and we

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found that the majority of the public perceived land surveyors as poorly educated tradespeople who wore tattered clothes and stood on the side of the road behind a tripod,” says Stecyk. That image is a far cry from the truth and is one that organizations such as the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association has worked to change. A registered land surveyor has four years of post-secondary education under his or her belt and articles for two years before working solo. Many surveyors get their first taste of the job working as rodmen, like Michaud is doing. They learn as they go, taking training as required. While they can’t become registered land surveyors without attending a college or university program and then articling, they can still move up to positions like Woodland’s, running the crew and making educated decisions on-site. “It’s great for a guy like me,” says Michaud, who’s been working in the entry-level position of rodman for about a year and wants to make surveying his profession. “There’s a lot to learn and you can keep advancing.” Education and experience combine to give surveyors and their crews the knowledge required to engage in deductive reasoning so that when measurements don’t agree, they can make their own decisions. Behind those iconic tripods, survey personnel are taking extremely precise measurements from carefully determined positions to create an accurate blueprint of the location. “It’s a numbers game. The numbers have to match,” says Michaud. On-site, the joke is “close enough” because in surveying, there is no such thing. Measurements have to be

THE REAL PROPERTY REPORT The Alberta Real Estate Association listing contract requires a real property report – or RPR – when a house changes hands. The report is a drawing of your property that shows where each structure is located. If structures such as decks, sheds or fences cross property lines, the vendor of the property has to fix the problem before selling the property. Vendors must supply a current RPR to the real estate agent before the house can be legally sold. Although the term “current” is relative, Wallace recommends people always obtain an updated RPR if they’re going to sell their home, even if they have one they believe is current. “The real property report that was performed in 1997, for example, is a snapshot of that property in 1997,” explains Robert Wallace, president of Global Surveys Group. Over a decade later, the property may have changed due to improvements made by the owner. “They may have built a deck, changed a fence or poured some concrete. A neighbour might have built a fence or built something up to the property line. The municipality may have changed a requirement or there may be changes to the title,” says Wallace. An update guarantees the RPR is accurate, providing assurance to both vendor and buyer. There have been cases in which vendors have doctored old RPRs, causing headaches for unwitting buyers suddenly stuck with a shed or deck that extends beyond the property line. The typical RPR takes a couple of hours and requires the crew to measure about 10 points. An in-depth survey requires crews to measure the X, Y and Z co-ordinates of approximately 100 points. For property owners, it’s worth the time. An up-to-date RPR can quickly solve boundary disputes.

A Century of History for an Association… A Century of People, Pride and Passion. Challenger Geomatics Ltd. wishes to congratulate the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association on its 100th Anniversary. Challenger Geomatics is a multi-disciplinary geomatics and engineering company commited to the growth and development of land surveyors. Visit us at chalgeo.com to learn more.

Celebrating Our 25th Year

exact, equipment has to be perfectly level – a struggle in some cases – and all relevant structures must be included. “‘Close enough’ doesn’t count at all. Everything has to be really tight. Really precise,” Woodland says. Survey personnel often have an affinity for gear. Technology changes quickly in surveying and that can be part of the appeal. But advanced technology can also make finicky gear. Even though Woodland can manage to take notes even when it’s -20˚C, the electronic device he uses to store information prefers warmer weather. Even today, at -10˚C, the machine is sluggish, protesting the cold.

Thanks to Alberta’s land title system and sound survey practices, there are very few boundary disputes in the province. Disputes mainly arise between feuding neighbours and those are quickly put to rest with an updated real property report. Sometimes the team can’t use a particular technology due to the location of the job. GPS, for example, is widely used in surveying but requires an unobstructed view of the sky. Tall trees in residential areas or the office towers downtown make the technology useless. Later in the day, Woodland and Michaud will head to a job where they’ll be able to use GPS. Those kinds of jobs are Woodland’s favourites, perhaps because they often take place outside the city. People drawn to surveying typically enjoy mathematics and highly technical, very detailed work but they are also often outdoor enthusiasts. Projects on acreages or for oil and gas companies put them in close proximity to nature and allow them to work in a truly serene environment. Other projects, such as construction sites, don’t provide the same sense of peace. The sites are crowded, noisy and dirty. “You can’t even hear yourself think,” says Woodland. But for the urban surveyor, they’re interesting for other reasons. Surveyors and their technicians are involved at every stage of a construction project, says Robert Wallace. Typically, Wallace and his team would first conduct a survey on the parcel of land and provide the architects and engineers with the information they need before they can begin designing: the location of roads, curbs, sewers,

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electrical lines and so on. The initial survey is used to help design the building that will go on the site as well as in the application for a development permit. After the building is designed, the survey crew returns to the site to identify where each component will be placed. “We’ll give them the elevation of the roads, tell them where to put the asphalt, where to put the curbs, where to put the buildings,” says Wallace. Finally, the crew returns to measure everything and provide an up-to-date drawing of what’s been constructed. Clients like to see the same survey crew on-site each time, and the crew might visit anywhere from a dozen to 100 times, depending on the client’s needs. It’s the return trips that field guys like Michaud like. “You get to see the site evolve from nothing into a completely finished building,” he says. “I love that. Start to finish.” Even in 1975, when Wallace began surveying, measuring was done with a roll-up tape. Today, electronic measuring devices and global positioning systems do the work. Even a decade ago, a field technician such as Woodland would have to painstakingly write down each measurement. Now, he stores the information electronically and simply downloads it into his computer at the end of the day. Woodland and Michaud do anywhere from two to four projects per day, depending on the type of project, how smoothly the job goes and the amount of travel time involved. Much time is spent conducting surveys of residential properties for real property reports, or RPRs. (See sidebar page 41.) Surveying isn’t a 9-to-5 proposition; in the summer they can be in the field until 8 p.m. or later. Winter hours are shorter because of the need for daylight. At the end of the day, the crew returns to the office and turns in the information they’ve collected. There, a land surveyor or a supervised technician analyzes the information and gives it to a draftsperson, who creates the drawings for each project using AutoCAD software. Thanks to Alberta’s land title system and sound survey practices, there are few boundary disputes in the province. Disputes mainly arise between feuding neighbours and are quickly put to rest with an updated RPR. The value that technicians such as Woodland and Michaud and surveyors such as Wallace offer lies at least partly in the peace of mind they are able to supply to clients and the public. Their attention to detail and refusal to hurry through any step of the process ensures that people can buy property knowing it is properly demarcat-

Maidment Land Surveys Ltd.

Land Surveyors / Land Development Consultants

ed. Their efforts help the construction industry ensure buildings are properly situated on a property and constructed in such a way as to maximize the quality of design and development. “Alberta is a nice-looking province. We have orderly development,” Wallace says. “The surveyors play an active role in assuring the planning process is adhered to. We are a check-and-measure system to make sure Alberta continues to be a nice, esthetically pleasing place to live.”

SURPRISING FINDS “Sometimes a surveyor may ﬁnd what appears to be a pin but is, in reality, something else entirely,” says Robert Wallace, president of Global Surveys Group Inc. and pastpresident of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association. Surveyors of bygone days may have marked property corners with many types of iron pins, rebar, wooden posts and even railway track spikes. “It is up to the current surveyor to assess what he or she has found, to determine if it’s a piece of survey evidence or something that the landowner has put there,” Wallace says. Surveyors may have to be part historian, undertaking research to determine if what they have found is indicative of pins typically used in a certain area and of a certain time frame. A nd it’s not just about what they have found. When expected pins are absent, it may be because a wooden pin has rotted away or a proper ty owner has unwittingly removed it in the course of landscaping or other work.

Congratulations to the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association “100 Years Surveying Alberta Lands and Resources” (403) 286-0501 www.maidment.ca Calgary, Alberta 000.Maidment_1-6H_nBL.indd 1

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Land Development Land Surveying Oil Field Surveys Pipeline Surveys Utility Surveys

2/9/09 9:42:43 AM

Office: 780-523-4890 Toll Free: 1-866-928-4890 Fax: 780-523-4860 www.barlowsurveying.ca

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1/29/09 8:56:36 AM

Pals Surveys and Associates Ltd wishes to congratulate the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association on its 100th Anniversary.

Land Surveying in Alberta has a long and sometimes colorful history which Pals Surveys is proud to have been part of for over 25 years. As a Land Survey company with offices in Edmonton and Whitecourt, we provide our clients throughout Alberta with a wide range of services. At Pals Surveys we work hard to earn and keep our clients’ trust. As a COR certified company job safety is at the forefront of everything we do. We are p roud to have on two occasions (2006 & 2008) been the recipient of the Canadian Home Builders Association - Alberta: Safety Award Winner.

“WORK WITH YOU NOT FOR YOU.” www.palssurveys.com 1.800.263.0305

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PHOTOGRAPH BY DREW MYERS

THREE SURVEYORS: Chris Tucker, Leanne James and JiunHan Keong are at work in the land surveyor’s natural habitat – the ofﬁce

The Workforce, Surveyed Alberta’s land surveyors are a varied bunch. What unites them is their zeal for the profession and their commitment to serving the public

BY CAITLIN CRAWSHAW

URVEYORS ARE ALL ABOUT TREADING THE FINE LINE –

or at least finding it, anyway – between nations and neighbours, parks and municipalities. Unsung and often misunderstood, a land surveyor’s work goes a long way to keeping communities running smoothly. The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association is one of the oldest selfgoverning professional bodies in the province and its surveyors touch most industries, directly or indirectly. Meet some of the ALSA professionals at work today. PETER SULLIVAN, SURVEYOR GENERAL, EDMONTON

When Peter Sullivan decided to study surveying in the 1970s, he was looking for a gig that would allow him to travel and work outdoors. Three decades later, his career has delivered. Though most of his work happens in an office now, he continues to travel across Canada in his current role as Canada’s Surveyor General. Sullivan oversees the surveying of federal lands, including the northern territories, Canada’s offshore region, First Nations reserves and National Parks – in other words, more than 50 per cent of Canada’s land mass. From his Edmonton office, Sullivan also assists with various land claims projects – mainly comprehensive land claims in Northern Canada. This involves using modern surveying techniques and consulting historic land records in order to provide some certainty about parcels of land. “This land is critical to First Nations and the land is a generator of economic wealth,” explains

Sullivan, adding that a community can’t attract investors without knowing for certain where its boundaries lie. Sullivan wears another hat, too. He’s Canada’s representative on the Canada-U.S. International Boundary Commission, which resolves rare boundary disputes and maintains the 9,000-kilometre boundary between the two countries. This involves clearing a swath six metres wide between the two countries. “If law enforcement people don’t know where the line is, they don’t know what jurisdiction they’re in and what laws apply,” he continues. An Alberta Land Surveyor since 1990, Sullivan says his office isn’t well understood by the general population – nor is the surveying profession as a whole. “Surveyors work in the background,” he says, “but their work is critical to the governance of the country.”

www.alsa.ab.ca

JIUNHAN KEONG, CALGARY

At only 17 years old, JiunHan Keong hopped on a plane for Hamilton, Ontario, to complete his high school education. Staying behind in Malaysia, his parents believed their son would have better opportunities in Canada. It was a pivotal moment for a high school senior on the cusp of his adult life. He’d long considered engineering as a career route as he was skilled at math and raised in an educated family but he was unsure of his path. His high school guidance counsellor considered both his aptitudes and unusual passion for maps – “I can read maps and atlases for hours without becoming bored,” he says – and suggested surveying. So, Keong headed to the University of New Brunswick, with little knowledge of surveying but a sense that it would be worth the risk. And it was. Keong went on to complete a master’s in geomatics engineering. When he graduated in 2000, Keong and some friends partnered with a Calgary tech firm to create a new cellphone GPS system, a venture that led him to China for several years. When the tech bubble burst, Keong chose to leave the volatile world of tech development for land surveying. After years with Focus Surveys, he now works for Calgary’s Maltais Geomatics. He loves surveying areas that haven’t been measured for generations, and “retracing the footsteps of our predecessors.” Keong takes great satisfaction in the fact that his profession is well-respected and integral to society. “All of the Alberta Land Surveyors I know take great pride in their work. A lot of the time we’re dealing with boundaries and we know that that’s very important to how society runs.” CHRIS TUCKER, CALGARY

On a frosty November night in 1988, 24-year-old Chris Tucker was draining an inlet scrubber for a gas dehydrator at an oil and gas site near Drayton Valley, Alberta. It was an ordinary evening’s work until sometime around midnight. That’s when a systems problem at the dehydrator caused a critical steam pressure buildup. The ensuing

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explosion demolished a building and ruptured gas lines. Worse, it left Tucker badly burnt. This incident threw a fork in the road for Tucker and put him on the path to becoming an engineer – something he’d never had any intention of pursuing. A former air cadet, he began his career as a pilot but his flying dreams were squashed when the economic downturn of the early 1980s saw Alberta companies casting off their corporate aircrafts, and airline jobs were scarce. So, Tucker opted to work as an oilfield operator – until the explosion forced him to reassess once more. A year of rehab later, he decided to use his compensation package to go to university. “The burn was actually really instrumental in me becoming an engineer,” he says. At first he was unsure of what educational path to take, so he walked into the administration building at the University of Calgary and flipped a coin between geology and engineering. Engineering – and specifically geomatics – won out. The creation of Tucker’s geomatics business was almost as serendipitous. He was considering focusing on the 3-D scanning niche when he came across his first scanner online. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on eBay – I thought, ‘My God. If there’s a message from a greater being that I should start a business in laser scanning, this is it.’ ” Now his company, Point Geomatics, uses state-of-theart 3-D scanners for a diverse range of surveying projects – everything from heritage buildings to freeways to gas plants. “We’ve even worked with the Department of National Defence for blast protection for troops,” Tucker proudly says. It’s an uncommon focus for a surveying company. The 3-D scanners, which aren’t much bigger than a breadbox, generally cost between $130,000 and $1 million. “It’s no more accurate,” Tucker says of 3-D scanning, “but it’s much more complete. We could scan the office you’re sitting in and tell you how far it is from your laptop to your coffee cup.” This level of detail is hugely appealing for Tucker’s oil and gas clients.

“Some days I think it’s a good move,” he says. “Other days I think, ‘What the heck have I done?’” ryan Gordon, Peace river

GeorGe Smith, red deer

George Smith and his neighbour Bruce Koss were playing pool and tossing back a couple of cold ones in the basement of Smith’s Red Deer home. They got to talking about work. At the time, Smith was an office manager at a land surveying company where he’d worked for 19 years and his neighbour was a land agent. The two men had never really talked shop much before. Smith mentioned that he was considering an offer to buy the established company where he’d been working for so long. His neighbour asked why he didn’t just go solo. Smith saw his point. “If I was going to run a company, I thought I might as well make my own mistakes.” The thought of starting fresh, which would allow him to choose the company’s staff and direction, appealed. Eventually, the two men decided to team up in a new venture and, in September 2008, they launched Diversified Geomatics, offering oilfield surveying and municipal surveying services. The plan is to create a resilient company that can weather all economic climates. “As one sector slows, hopefully the other will keep our people busy,” says Smith. The biggest challenge is staffing, he admits. Like most surveying companies, party chiefs and articled students generally stick around once hired but rodmen change companies frequently. Regardless of how the work shifts, keeping staff requires keeping busy. “The economy seems to have slowed down somewhat, so now that I’ve got a couple of reliable guys, I don’t want to say, ‘Sorry, fellas, it’s just not working out – thanks for coming.’” All in all, he’s rolling with his decision to start fresh.

When it came to choosing a university major, Ryan Gordon was stumped – so he did what seemed easiest. “I went for a [geomatics engineering] degree because my sister was taking it and I could inherit all of her textbooks,” he says, and he laughs. “Not the best reason. I never pictured a career as a surveyor but, after my third year of school, I got a job surveying and went out in the field – that’s when I fell in love with it.” Gordon, who was raised in Saudi Arabia and Calgary, had travelled extensively in his youth but still had itchy feet. So, after graduating, he headed to Slave Lake to launch his career, turning down jobs in Calgary. “I’ve been other places in the world, but I’d never explored Alberta,” he says. Slave Lake was a neat place for a while, but now Gordon lives in Grimshaw with his wife and two children and works in Peace River. He’s already a project manager at only 27 – though management has never been his plan. He is quick to point out that he started at the bottom of the ladder, pounding stakes in the ground and tying flags. His ambition is to develop his career at a pace that will allow him to grow into his roles and learn all he can. “I’m happy where I’m at right now,” he says.

www.alsa.ab.ca

PIOTR STROZYK, EDMONTON

In 1989, Piotr Strozyk and his wife left Poland for Canada. The new grads were tired of the lack of available housing that was forcing them to divide their time between the student dormitory and in-laws. They settled in Alberta and Strozyk launched his career as a land surveyor, a profession he’d been working in since his high school days. He was initially drawn to it because of family ties – his uncle was a surveyor, as was Strozyk’s cousin. “I basically followed in his footsteps. When he was getting his degree, I was starting university.” After arriving in Canada, Strozyk held many different positions related to land surveying before getting his commission in 2004. He was surprised to discover that land surveying is not an area many Canadians are familiar with. In Poland, land surveying is as commonly known as law or medicine. “I think that, historically, it was one of the most important professions in Poland,” he explains, adding that after the mayor and priest, the land surveyor was the most-respected person in a community. And until the 1970s, it was one of the best-paying jobs as well, possibly due to the demand – estates were frequently divided up among family members. After 15 years in the industry, in 2004 Strozyk opted to start his own company, Alberta Geomatics, and hit the ground running. At the height of the boom, his company was over-worked and staffing was a perpetual problem. Now, Strozyk says his staff of six is the perfect size to manage the workload. Recent changes to the real estate market have meant that demand for residential surveying has dropped off significantly. Between August and September 2008, for instance, demand for real property reports diminished significantly. But rather than branch into oilfield surveying, Strozyk is committed to residential surveying and growing his company incrementally.

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LEANNE JAMES, CALGARY

Leanne James’ surveying career began at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton two decades ago, where she completed the survey technology diploma program. “I like the outdoors, I’m good with mathematics, and astronomy interested me,” she says. It was like a checklist for surveying. She enjoyed the profession so much that she later moved to Fredericton to earn a degree in geomatics engineering at the University of New Brunswick. For the first part of her career, James worked mostly for smaller firms until she was hired on as a supervisor at the City of Calgary, where she worked for eight years. From 2007 to 2009, James was an associate at Stantec, where she worked in land development, heading up legal surveying work for large subdivisions. It was a change from her other experiences. At the City of Calgary, her work focused on plan integration – integrating legal surveying plans with mapping systems. In other positions, she’s done a wide range of surveying, including oilfield and land claims projects. When she began her career, James was one of literally a handful of Alberta women in the profession. More have since joined, but the profession is still largely dominated by men. “A lot of women become surveying technologists, but stop at the professional stage. I think there’s an underlying feeling that it’s still a man’s world,” she says. James would like this to change and does her part to support young women entering the field but at the same time, she says she has never felt limited by being in the minority.

The 13th Sign You’ve known it all along – you are one of a type, not just a random assemblage of quirky skills and interests

STROLOGERS HAVE RECENTLY DISCOV-

ered a 13th star sign, which they are calling Surveyus the Measurer. Along with Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, this new one is an earth sign, associated with stability, strength and practicality. Unlike the other signs, Surveyus has no fixed calendar date and people falling under this sign may be born at any time of the year. Perhaps you are a Surveyus – only you will know for sure. Your Horoscope: Surveyus, like many of your earthy brethren, you are solid and dependable as well as cautious and thorough – some would say overly so. You have oddly juxtaposed talents. You possess a bookish love for math and history, yet you often yearn for the solitude of the outdoors. You are equally at home with a desk and a keyboard as you are with hiking boots and bear spray. Some would call you fussy and overly obeisant of laws and regulations. You have the ability to visualize objects, shapes, distance and sizes with creepy accuracy. Your affinity for maps, charts and data is distracting. Despite a love of dusty volumes and historical records, you are a gearhead at heart with a passion for GIS, GPS, CAD and other equipment. You love computers and gizmos with all the bells and whistles but

you maintain a certain smug satisfaction that you can reach the same conclusions – down to the millimetre – using nothing but your big brain and a plumb bob. Yours is a mutable sign and your Surveyus heart won’t let you be lonely for too long. Your ability to organize and your good communication skills keep you out of the field – occasionally pining for it – for long stretches as you oversee others in larger projects. Seek out Capricorn and Virgo as natural allies and excellent techs for your team. The year starts slowly for you, with a steady rise in activity towards the fall. The main theme for you this year is individuality tempered by sociability that lets you lead a team to a common goal. Seek out interprovincial alliances, keep your skills current and look for brother and sister Surveyuses in unlikely places.

GET EDUCATED If you fall under the movable star sign of Surveyus the Measurer, consider a career in land surveying. Check out these links to ﬁnd out more. Careers in Geomatics: www.careersingeomatics.ab.ca University of Calgary: www.geomatics.ucalgary.ca University of New Brunswick: gge.unb.ca Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association: www.alsa.ab.ca

www.alsa.ab.ca

Last Word

BY BRUCE DRAKE; AS TOLD TO RACHEL SINGH

Tales from the Field Every surveyor has them – those stories from the early days before they wound up in an ofﬁce for most of the day. Here are a few of mine

ILLUSTRATION BY HEFF O’REILLY

FTER I GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL,

I attended the University of Calgary’s geomatics program, then went to work for the family surveying business. Our family has always been part of land surveying. I got involved with it in my first summer job. The very first surveying job I did was with my dad. I was still a kid in grade school. He was working for McElhanney Land Surveyors Ltd. in Edmonton and had to go out and do some slack chaining through a field. So out I went with him on a Saturday afternoon to follow the end of a surveyor’s chain through the bush. Every time I saw some surveyor’s ribbon on the fence I was to hold onto the chain with all my might until my father tied on a new piece of ribbon. We spent the day heading across the bush, down the fence line like that. It was a lot of fun, but the thing that always makes me remember this story is that on Monday, Dad went into the office and told his boss that I had gone out with him on the weekend. His boss insisted on giving me a paycheque. So dad comes home with this cheque for $10. I was six years old and I remember thinking, “Man, surveying is great. You make this huge amount of money and you don’t have to work too hard. You just go out and get some fresh air.” Thirty years later, I realize that survey helper’s wages haven’t increased. Early on in my career, after high school graduation but before I went to university, I was working for a company

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in Calgary and I went out for the day to do this little “measure one angle, measure one distance” kind of job. My boss and I get out into the middle of this big open field and see a tree that we think will be a hindrance to our survey line. So we go wandering along to investigate. After walking about 100 yards from the truck to the tree, sure enough the hanging branches were in our way. We looked at one another and realized neither one of us had brought an axe so I said, “Well, I’ll climb the tree and bend the branch so you can reach up and break it off.” Off I go up the tree, out onto the branch. I’m standing on this branch, bouncing up and down trying to get it down to the point where he could reach it to snap it off. Then my boot slipped – of course it was the middle of winter and it was icy. I hear this popping and tearing noise and then I’m hanging from the tree, five feet off the ground with this excruciating pain in my knee and my boss going, “Come on, Bruce, just jump down.” Twenty years later when I go for long walks, my knee reminds me that climb-

ing trees in winter is a very bad idea. Another story that always brings a smile to my face is about an early subdivision survey. We were creating a lot out of a quarter-section up at the Paddle Prairie Métis Settlement. My assistant and I were trying to locate a survey section corner. We got to the place where I knew it was supposed to be. To my dismay, I found a ditch filled with water that was more than waist-deep. I knew the survey evidence was in there, so I ended up stripping down to my boxers – I left the rubber boots on because you’re never sure what you’re going to be stepping on. And I jumped in. I managed to find the post with my foot, but to make sure that the bottom of the prism pole was on the right spot I actually had to feel with my hand to put the point in the survey post. There was nothing else for it: I had to put my head under the dirty, grimy ditch water. That’s always a good story to tell to get people interested in the profession – being naked except for rubber boots and boxers and soaking wet in a ditch on a lovely July afternoon.

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Focus congratulates the ALSA on 100 years of public service in establishing and maintaining boundaries throughout Alberta. Focus is proud to have participated at all levels of the association’s rich history, and our staff of over 40 Alberta Land Surveyors will continue this tradition forward. Focus would like to extend thanks to all of our clients, partners, employees and communities for their support that has allowed us to contribute to the ALSA’s 100-year history. Focus Surveys is a division of Focus Corporation, a multi-disciplinary consulting firm that provides a range of engineering, geomatics, planning, project management and environmental services. Focus employs more than 1,400 employees in more than 20 offices throughout Western Canada. Focus is one of Alberta’s Top 40 Employers for 2009 and one of Alberta’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies for the past three years.