Dominion Land Survey

The Dominion Land Survey (DLS; French: arpentage des terres fédérales, ATF) is the method used to divide most of Western Canada into one-square-mile (2.6 km2) sections for agricultural and other purposes.

It is based on the layout of the Public Land Survey System used in the United States, but has several differences.

(Although British Columbia entered Confederation with control over its own lands, unlike the Northwest Territories and the Prairie provinces, British Columbia transferred these lands to the federal Government as a condition of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

)[1] The survey was begun in 1871, shortly after Manitoba and the North-West Territories became part of Canada, following the purchase of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company.

Covering about 800,000 square kilometres (310,000 sq mi), the survey system and its terminology are deeply ingrained in the rural culture of the Prairies.

The DLS is the world's largest survey grid laid down in a single integrated system.

[2] The inspiration for the Dominion Land Survey System was the plan for Manitoba (and later Saskatchewan and Alberta) to be agricultural economies.

These lands were gradually sold by the company and in 1984 they donated the remaining 5,100 acres (21 km2) to the Saskatchewan Wildlife Association.

Sir John A. Macdonald remarked in 1870 that the Americans "are resolved to do all they can short of war, to get possession of our western territory, and we must take immediate and vigorous steps to counteract them.

The introduction of the survey system marked the end of the nomadic ways for the First Nations and Metis.

Work to establish the first meridian and few township outlines began and quickly ended in 1869 when a party of Metis symbolically stepped on a survey chain, beginning the Red River Resistance.

Work resumed in 1871; however, the system was redesigned to use 6-mile townships with 640-acre sections based on a suggestion from Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories William McDougall, who advocated that most of the settlers would come from the United States, so it was "advisable to offer them lots of a size to which they have been accustomed."

Around 178,000,000 acres (720,000 km2) are estimated to have been subdivided into quarter sections, 27 million of which were surveyed by 1883 (14 years after the system's inception).

Because the east and west edges of townships, called "range lines", are meridians of longitude, they converge towards the North Pole.

LSDs are commonly used by the oil and gas industry as a precise way of locating wells, pipelines, and facilities.

These in no way constitute an official change to the Dominion Land Survey system, but nonetheless often appear as part of the legal description.

As part of the deal that transferred Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada, the HBC retained five per cent of the "fertile belt" (south of the North Saskatchewan and Winnipeg rivers).

Additionally, the fourth quarter of Section 26 in townships whose numbers were divisible by five also belonged to the HBC in order to give the company exactly five per cent.

The remaining quarter sections were available as homesteads under the provisions of the Dominion Lands Act, the federal government's plan for settling the North-West.

Early settlement lots still retain their own original legal descriptions, but often have townships superimposed over them for the sake of convenience or for certain tasks.

Urban developments superimpose new survey lots and plans over the older section and township grid also.

These were Indian reserves, pre-existing "settlements" divided into "river lots" based on the French system used in Quebec, and lands around Hudson's Bay Company trading posts reserved for the company when it transferred its claim over the West to Canada in 1870.

[citation needed] The rights of the pre-DLS settlers was a major political issue in the West in the late nineteenth century.

In the case of the closely clustered settlements of Edmonton, St. Albert, and Fort Saskatchewan in the Alberta District, a militant "settlers' rights" movement developed which demanded action from the federal government to grant the settlers legal title to their land and to end claim jumping.

Most of these grievances were resolved by 1885, which is likely one of the reasons the area never joined the North-West Rebellion despite the fact that St. Albert, and to a lesser extent Edmonton, were largely populated by Métis people.