Historic Field Book Entries

The following are excerpts from Edouard Deville’s Dominion Land Survey report on the Block Outline Survey in the Touchwood Hills, south of Wynyard. It is from Field Book #947:

“The expedition left Winnipeg on the 8th of June and Fort Ellice on the 17th…[began] work on the 5th of July.”


At the beginning of his expedition he contracted men to help him and many of them deserted:

“1st of August, six of my men left the party…on the 10th of August … three men deserted another left two days after and two more on the 20th…between August 19th and ending August 27th… five men left me.”

The survey contracts were with the government and legally binding; therefore, not fulfilling the terms and conditions of them could lead to arrest:

“I wrote to Mr. McLean J.P. at Qu'Appelle asking him to issue warrants against the deserters.”  After hearing nothing from Mr. MacLean he “decided to go there…[and] found that Mr. McLean was not there and in fact, he was absent all summer…so [he] gave up all hopes of taking proceedings against the deserters.”

Even though these men left, he did not give up on the survey:

“I engaged new men and went to work again on the 3rd of September. More desertions followed, but I managed to work until the 12th of October when the block being closed I gave up the survey and went back to Winnipeg which was reached on October 30th.  I paid off the three men I had and went back to Ottawa.”

For this expedition, in total, Deville lost over 17 men and in the end he only paid three men who may or may not have been in his party from the beginning. Five years after such hardship, Deville became the Surveyor General for all Dominion Lands. He held this office for 39 years – from 1885-1924.

Edouard Gaston Deville: Life and Times

As a surveyor, Edouard Gaston Deville perfected the first practical method of photogrammetry, or the making of maps based on photography (usually aerial photographs).

He served in the French navy, conducting hydrographic surveys in the South Sea islands, Peru and elsewhere until 1874. He then went to Canada, where he surveyed much of the prairie.

Life achievements:
1875 — Quebec surveyor
1881 — Inspector of Surveys for Quebec
1882 — Founding Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
1885 — Surveyor General of Canada
1889 — Published Photographic Surveying
1905 — Honourary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Toronto
1916 — Companion of the Imperial Service Order
1922 — Honourary member of Engineering Institute of Canada

To find out more about Edouard Deville and other Canadian trailblazers, visit Natural Resources Canada.