Made to Measure: A History of Land Surveying in British Columbia - Hardcover

Katherine Gordon

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9781550391534: Made to Measure: A History of Land Surveying in British Columbia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1550391534 ISBN 13: 9781550391534

Publisher: Sono Nis Press, 2006

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Land surveyors have played a fundamental role in the unique settlement history of British Columbia. The story of their work is awe-inspiring. Less than 150 years ago, the province—a rough and beautiful child of imperial ambition—was largely a vast wilderness, occupied by societies without written maps. Within a few years, that would change forever. Men from London and Victoria made their way along trails and up waterways, observing the stars, setting their compasses, and drawing the lines that would become roads and railways, international and provincial boundaries, towns and cities, farms and homes. Those invisible lines continue to form the backbone of British Columbia’s economic and settlement structure. This popular history tells the remarkable story of the men and women who surveyed the province. Using basic equipment, surveyors endured arduous work conditions. They witnessed the tragedy of colonial impact on aboriginal peoples, protected the interests of prospectors, settlers, and entrepreneurs, pioneered aerial technologies in the mountains, and left their names on landmarks all over British Columbia. Made to Measure paints an engaging, vivid portrait of land surveyors and their influence on British Columbia, linked inextricably to both the past and future settlement.

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About the Author:

Made to Measure is Katherine Gordon's third book. She has also written The Slocan: Portrait of a Valley (Sono Nis Press, 2004), and A Curious Life: The Biography of Princess Peggy Abkhazi (Sono Nis Press, 2002). Gordon contributes to publications such as the Globe and Mail newspaper, BC Business magazine, British Columbia magazine, and Canadian Homes & Cottages, among others. A globe-trotting half-French, half-English expatriate Kiwi and a former lawyer and aboriginal land claims negotiator, she now lives on Gabriola Island, British Columbia.

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