what? The Dominion Land Survey was invented by previous generations of over-inebriated surveyors to map Manitoba to western Alberta. It looks like this: 01-12-061-06W5, and can be approximated algorithmically to latitude and longitude, which my friend and I have done.
Unfortunately, early British Columbian surveyors also began the lucrative hemp by-product trade, so DLS is used in one grid square in north-eastern BC and a few miles either side of the CPR railway for a fair way in to BC, but some other system that looks like this: B-011-B/094-P-04 is used elsewhere.
Despite many hours of research at the local library and an email to the BC Surveyor General (as yet unreplied), I have failed even to put a name to this system, much less decode it to it’s saner two-dimensional counterparts.
I had no idea the complexity of the land parcelling. It sounds like you’ve got the reseach started, so continue on with municipalities and historians in the areas you are interested in.
The municipalities will have the surveys for their district, and you may find the name of the scheme attached to some of the older documents they may have. I haven’t tried to get this type of information before, but I would guess that there are archivists who are dying to look up something different than a property dispute between neighbours. Obviously the province will have this information somewhere as well, but I suspect that a local archive will be less busy and more willing to help you.
There is usually some sort of historical society in most communities, and there must be some recluse whose passion is ensuring that this documentation lives on. The trick is finding him/her.
Sadly enough these schemes are absolutely completely current and aren’t going to be replaced any decade soon. The data we’re working on comes from oil rig locations as reported daily from the field; I imagine the rig workers use government maps with the appropriate location designations on them.
The mapping software we have available (ie, Google Maps) only accepts lat/long, hence the requirement for conversion.
The way it works is (for example, with my location B-011-B/094-P-04, which turns out not to be a great example, but anyhow…), you first get the NTS square grid number (94 in this case). Each grid is divided in to 16 lettered grids (see here), which is where the P is used.
That grid is furthur divided into 100 squares, of which we need ‘04’. (Up to here is described in the .gif in my first link).
At this point, you still have the first “B-011-B” bit. If you don’t mind opening a fairly large (in all respects) pdf, check this random map out, which at the bottom has a legend expaning the grid system. Basically there’s a furthur subdivided group of 12 lettered squares (the last B), a block of 100 (the 011), and then a grid of 4 lettered a,b,c and d (the first b).
Despite the crazy number and different sizes of subdivisions, this system at least follows lines of latitude and longitude, and has (apparently) no nutty correction lines like the DLS system. (Which still follows incorrectly-surveyed sections from the 1900’s, hence the addition of ‘aproximated’ to my OP.) Hopefully this info can save someone some small headaches, so they can get right to the big ones.
Mostly internet search. I got one email back, saying that the website was up for them (yeah, me too, but the search was still busted), and that I could call “Base Mapping and Geomatic Services of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands” long distance if it was still a problem. :rolleyes:
I also got an Alberta Library card from the Edmonton Public Library (free with my EPL card, and good for the University library) after the librarian there figured that would be the place to go, but after I found somewhere that the name was BCGS, I managed to find enough pieces everywhere (note all my links above) to put things together.
Too bad - it’s been a while since I’d had to do any research at the UofA.
