Dylan's Thoughts

On Monday March 25th, 2019, Joey Chessie, a licensed New Brunswick Land Surveyor was a guest speaker on Monday March 25th, 2019 for our Land Administration class. The following post is built off of what Joey discussed and my thoughts after the lecture. As this is the last post, it also reflects on what I learned in Land Administration about the role of a land surveyor.

One of the things Joey mentioned that stood out to me was that a surveyor only “shows the extents, rights and interests in land”. He also said that the land owners are the ones with the power in regards to boundaries. And lastly, that surveyors just facilitate the owners extents, rights and interests in their land and do not have the right to create random boundaries – which makes sense. If a boundary is being created, it is because of a change in a land owners rights, extents and interests.

I found this interesting and I thought about it for a while. When thinking about it, land owners really are the ones with the power. These individuals are the people who employ land surveyors. For example, when two owners are having a boundary dispute, or an owner wants to relinquish some rights by subdividing his/her land, etc., they all require a land surveyor. The reason being, with ample experience and studying they are experts in their field and understand it deeply.

Throughout the lecture Joey was talking about the role of a surveyor. This led to me thinking about the role of a surveyor throughout history. While doing research on this topic, what became really interesting to me was how the ‘title’ of being a surveyor has been regarded by society over time.

Years ago, if you were a surveyor people thought very highly of you. Your status in society was high. Jerry Penry from The American Surveyor explained the reasoning for this

“The early surveyors required the skills of a woodsman to blaze trails, and agronomist or mineralogist skills to document the soil structure or important minerals…[and] knowledge of botany to document the species of trees and determine the difference between plants that were edible and those that would kill them. “Good marksmanship was needed to obtain fresh food on site, and to defend against hostile Indians.”

Among these skills they also had to be very intelligent individuals to be able to handle the many calculations that came with the career. Penry believed and said that

“Perhaps no other occupation in history has required the worker to encompass so many different areas of expertise.”

In fact, as PDH Academy states some famous land surveyors include President George Washington, President Thomas Jefferson and President Lincoln. This means that three out of the four faces on Mount Rushmore were surveyors. I believe that this fact along says a lot about land surveyors and their place in society.

As you can gather from Penry, surveying has changed drastically over time. Please see the images below to take you through the variations of what a survey crew typically consisted of and what it consists of in present day.

It is clear in the first picture, the land surveyor is the person sitting down in the front. This picture portrays the importance of the surveyor. As you can see from the second image, many survey crews included local Indians because these individuals knew the land and played a massive role in keeping the crew alive with their expertise. The third picture also shows the surveyors status in society. Several years ago there was even a job called the “Umbrella Person”. The sole purpose of this individual was to shade the surveyor.

As technology developed, the typical survey crew grew smaller and while a surveyors status is still relatively high, in my opinion, land surveyors aren’t thought of the same as they once were. Most people in the general public believe that the technology does it all and that the ‘Average Joe’ can do the work of a land surveyor. With this being said, I agree that the technology helps immensely but, surveyors still need to understand the technology and why it works to do our job correctly-this isn’t an easy task.

In conclusion , the land surveyor plays an extremely important part in the worlds history and development as a whole. From the early settlement of nations where surveyors were laying out the land to present day where a surveyor ” shows the extents, rights and interests in land”. For this reason, in my opinion , the career of a land surveyor should be regarded of extreme importance and necessary in any world no matter the level of technological advancements.

This wraps up my final blog post for Land Administration 1. I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!

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Work Cited

8 of America’s Most Famous Land Surveyors. (2017, August 31). Retrieved from https://pdhacademy.com/2017/08/31/8-americas-famous-land-surveyors/

Walking the Line. (2016, January 12). Retrieved from https://truewestmagazine.com/walking-the-line-2/

Task:

 1. Using Google Earth or Google Maps, find an image of each of the following types of survey system in Canada: (a) Seigneurial system, (b) Nova Scotia / New Brunswick Township System, (c) Ontario Township System (identify which type your example is), (d) Dominion Land Survey System, (e) British Columbia Survey System other than DLS, (f) unsystematic settlement in Newfoundland, and (g) Block and Lot Survey System

2. Choose some area in the world, outside of Canada. Based on a visual examination of that area in Google Earth / Google Maps, state (a) whether the land allocation appears to be systematic, (b) whether there is similarity to any Canadian survey system, (c) whether the area appears to be densely settled, (d) what kind of land use appears to be carried out there (e.g. industrial, residential, agriculture, forestry, or some combination of these), and (e) whether the land allocation appears to be a good fit for the land use and population density.

Answers:

(a) Seigneurial system

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This in an example of the seigneurial system near Berthierville Quebec.

(b) Nova Scotia / New Brunswick Township System

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Here is evidence of the township system set in place during the original settlement of Saint John, New Brunswick.

(c) Ontario Township System (This is an example of the 640 Acre “Sectional” Variation)

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Above shows an example of the Sectional Variation of Townships near St. Catharines, Ontario.

(d) Dominion Land Survey System

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The two pictures above show the Dominion Land Survey system results near Humboldt, Saskatchewan. You can see the clearly see the roads and divisions between them. As well as the ranges and townships.

(e) British Columbia Survey System other than DLS

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Above is an example of the District and Lots survey system in Vanderhoof, British Columbia.

(f) Unsystematic settlement in Newfoundland

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It is evident that in these two example there were not any systematic approaches for settling this land. On the left is La Scie, Newfoundland and the right is Barbours Island, Newfoundland.

(g) Block and Lot Survey System

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As you can see from this image of Moncton the Block and Lot system was used. You can tell because parcels within roads are nice and square and there is organization with the positioning of lots.

2.) The location is chose is Dhaka, Bangladesh. This is the capital of Bangladesh and is the most densely populated city in the world.

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(a) The land in this area seems to be very systematic, especially on the right half where places are actually called “Block A”, “Block B”, etc.

b) This is clearly a very urban area so there are some similarities to survey systems used in Canada like the Block and Lot system for urban areas. For example, below is an image of Toronto, Canada and the surrounding area.

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(c) Yes, this area appears to be densely populated. You can tell from the imagery because of the way the land is allocated.

(d) The land in the picture of Dhaka on the right half appears to be residential. The middle appears to be a mix of that and a bit of industrial. While on the left, as you work you way out of the city become more residential again.

(e) It is clear that every inch of the land for the city has been developed and used to the cities advantage. With that being said, I think the land is a good fit for the population of the city as it was clearly developed in a systematic approach.

Please note all pictures are from Goggle Maps.

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… or lack there of

Since we starting covering how early settlements throughout Canada developed and their process, I have been really intrigued. I am from a very small coastal town on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. The nearest town to mine has a very rich history and I decided to look into this and what survey systems/settlement techniques were used and how the land was settled in general.

Shelburne Nova Scotia is a town that went from nothing, to the fourth largest city in North America at the time, to a present population of just above 1700 people. There are many factors that are to blame for this – land use planning and surveying efforts are partially to blame.

The History

Shelburne Nova Scotia was built on what is one of todays biggest natural harbours, which would bring its own pros and cons to the development of the town. During the time of the early 1780’s Britain was trying to settle people in Nova Scotia who would be loyal to them. Thus the name Loyalists. These people where assured beautiful farming land, free of charge and a place to call home if they would assist in developing this community. Now, pretend it is 1782 when 100 families of Loyalists from New York City land in Shelburne to organize and settle this land. This group was call the Port Roseway Associates. (“The Loyalist Experiment of Shelburne, Nova Scotia”, 2004)The Roseway is the extremely long river system that connects to the ocean at the head of the harbour.

Move ahead a year to early 1783. The Roseway Associates still havent been granted their land and barely any efforts in clearing, surveying or preparing the land for the incoming families had been completed. In Autumn of this year the first mass amount of people from the Boston and the middle colonies arrive to the undeveloped town they were promised. 5000 people arrived and were forced to spend the winter on the ships they arrived in. (Town of, Shelburne. (2019))

Survey and Development Efforts

The land is granted to the Loyalists eventually, however, at a later date then promised. Here is a map of the loyalist grants in the area in 1784.

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In any area, a very organized and structured layout and plan must be in place to ensure prosperity and successfulness. The goal of this development was to replace Boston and become the trading centre between Britain and the West Indies. The associates had great expectations but lacked in making them happen.

Many of the new comers were merchants, service people (i.e. barbers), and traders to help support the upcoming trading hub. Issues arose because there weren’t enough people that knew how to live off the land and farm it. Also, the land that was made out to be “great farming land’ was extremely populated with rock and lacking nutrient rich soil.

More people came to the town of Shelburne and it very quickly became an urban centre but as mentioned, the town wasn’t ready. At its peak, after more waves of settlers, Shelburne had roughly 10,000 people. In an effort too late, the Roseway Associates and surveyors followed the Pro-English settlement survey techniques and used the Township system to develop their settlements core. Below is a picture of the town in 1894.

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Accessed from: “Nova Scotia Archives – Gideon White Family Papers”, 2019

As you can see they followed the urban centre style with blocks and many intersections. This was too late and should have been completed before the influx of people. By 1816 the population of the town dwindled to under 400 people. This happened for serval reasons:

• Racial issues which led to many Black Loyalists going to Sierra Leone.
• Government distribution of provisions was terminated in 1787.
• Hunger became an issue as well as the town is 9 miles inside the harbour which froze solid during the winters.
  
• Lack of land planning and organization

Once they realized the town needed to be developed they did little to no development in regards to the farm land so food became an issue in that regard as well. As you can see, the town of Shelburne is an extreme example of how land development, government and planning is crucial to the successful development of a settlement.

The Roseway Associates had great aspirations but failed to make them happen. Perhaps, if they had prepared the land and made it ready for the mass influx in population, the people could have sustained them selves and Shelburne could have been the capital of Nova Scotia.

References

Nova Scotia Archives – Gideon White Family Papers. (2019). Retrieved from https://novascotia.ca/archives/white/results.asp?Intro=more

The Loyalist Experiment of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. (2004). Retrieved from http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ab443/shelburne.htm

Town of, Shelburne. (2019). Shelburne’s History – Town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Retrieved from https://www.town.shelburne.ns.ca/shelburnes-history.html

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 Task:

1.) For the parcel identified in Response 4, provide a plot showing both the current parcel and the original parcel.

Answers:

As a refresher, I chose a parcel with PID 55194856. This parcel is in Saint John and is currently owned by Irving Oil Limited. As mentioned previously, the original parcel was a whopping 2000 acres being granted to a ‘James Simonds’ and is currently only 0.72 acres. To put this into perspective, 2777 of the current parcels could fit within the original.

There is a part of me that enjoys doing property searches and chain of titles because you can find out lots of interesting information, in my opinion. For example, this man owned a vast amount of land as I concluded from the Grantor/Grantee Index. I also made the connection of why the high school a few blocks away from my parcel is named ‘Simonds High’.

Because of how much smaller the current parcel is I am showing the current parcel by itself first so viewers can see the dimensions clearly.

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Below is a representation of where the current parcel is with respect to the original.

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Tasks:

1. Using the SNB PLANET system, find a parcel of somewhere in New Brunswick. For that parcel, identify the current owner.
2. Identify the chain of owners of the parcel for the last 20 years, and the holder of the original Crown grant, by name. This is not a full abstract of title, so document numbers, etc. are not needed, just the chain of names until you reach someone more than 20 years ago. You need only record holders of title to the parcel, and not other rights like easements or mortgages, so long as the land did not change hands.

Answer:

1.) The parcel chosen is identified with PID 55194856. The current owner is Irving Oil Limited.

2.) Fun fact: the original Crown Grant was 2000 acres. The present parcel is 2919 metres squared.

Owners	Time Period
Irving Oil Limited	Nov 7, 2008 – Present
Dorothy & Joseph Savoy	Sep 30, 2003 – Nov 7, 2008
Baxter Construction Ltd.	Oct 18, 2002 – Sep 30, 2003
Bryan & Hazel Jacquart	Jul 24, 2002 – Oct 18, 2002
Josephine McCormick & Audrey McIntyre	Nov 24, 1994 – Jul 24, 2002
Estate of James L. Barrett
…
James Simmonds
The Crown

Questions:

1. Find an example of an advertisement. It could be an image, or a video, and could be for anything—a product, to support a politician, etc.. For that example, indicate whether pathos, ethos, and/or logos are used to persuade you to buy the product.
2. For one of the cases under the “Cases” folder for the Module VI readings, read the case, write a correct legal citation for it, and state (one or two sentences) why it is important for a surveyor trying to determine the boundaries of a parcel of land.
3. View the file named “Survey_Plan_for_Description.PDF” in the “Assignments” folder on D2L. Based on the information in this file, write a metes and bounds description for the parcel labeled “Part I”. Note that it is not necessary that your description be perfect—only that you go through the exercise of writing a fairly good one.

Answers:

This is an ad from Greenpeace Canada. They are trying to portray the importance of how we are abusing our oceans with plastic and pollution in general. The tagline in the ad is ” Don’t suck the life from our oceans.” and shows a baby turtle clearly affected by the destruction plastic is causing. They have many similar ads with different animals and the same tagline. This ad is using a pathos technique of persuasion because most people have strong feelings and emotions regarding animals, especially baby animals. Their tagline is short and gets the point across. Their choice of words also will engage readers feelings. Again making use of pathos.

2.) The case I chose was Langille v. Tanner 1973. The legal citation for that would be:

Langille v. Tanner et al. [1973] 14 N.S.R. (2d) 132

This citation is important for surveyors because they need to have reason and follow legal requirements to make their decision on boundaries of parcels. If a surveyor is working on a job that is similar to this court case, he would want to read the case and see what was done. The citation makes it easy to find and read.

3.)

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The metes and bounds description I created for ‘Part 1’ is:

Beginning at an iron bar at the north west corner of ‘Part 1’, south of ‘Part 2’. And being 101.00 feet away from an iron bar being the south western corner of ‘Part 2′ at a bearing of N 67° 29′ 30″ W . Thence in a south-easterly direction along a bearing of S 67° 29′ 30″ E for 199.00 feet to an iron bar. Thence S 67° 29′ 30″ E for 10 feet to the intersection of the post & wire fence. Thence S 16° 51′ 30″ W for 220.00 feet to an iron bar. Thence N 67° 29′ 30″ W for 209.00 feet to a iron bar. Thence N 16° 51’ 30″ E for 220.00 feet to the place of beginning.

The hereinbefore described parcel of land contains 1.05 acres more or less and is being intended to be land allegedly belonging to the estate of OWNERS (no information on plan) designated as Lot 26 Concession 7 in the Township of East Hawkesbury, and is shown on filed plan number 46R-5593.

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Among the many topics discussed previously I was particularly interested in learning about the history of cadastres around the world and record keeping pertaining to land. I’ve completed many title searches before and understand the importance of cadastres and how beneficial they are. They already hold so much information. However, with advances in technology, I can only think what a cadastre could be in the future. Due to technological advancements information is so readably accessible and open to anybody. Keeping cadastres updated and improving them is a necessity as the world becomes more advanced.

When I was working on title searches I was using Nova Scotia’s cadastre “Property Online” known as “POL”.
It requires a paid subscription to use but holds an incredible amount of information about land in the province. The amount of knowledge to be accessed is well worth the cost. There are many other useful resources for doing title searches as well but imagine if everything you needed could be found in one place.

A world leader in cadastres is the Korean Land Information System (KLIS). This valuable tool contains a vast amount of information on land in Korea. Their cadastre contains more information than many cadastres have, for example it has more GIS and spatial data about parcels. On top of that, they are adding in new things and developing it even more. With the digitizing of documents, joining databases together and more, it is calculated that Korea will foresee a 7.7 million dollar cost reduction each year. It is clear that the people and government of Korea understand the importance of the cadastre as this has taken a lot of planning and coordination. The KLIS is a great example of updating and improving a cadastre just like the rest of the world needs to do. To gain more information about the KLIS click here.

Possible cadastre improvements

I think the more information in one place the better. If every useful piece of information could be compiled in a single cadastre it would make it easier to preform research, but would also provide a lot of positive economic contributions for planning and assessments.

For example, it would be tremendous in urban areas where a lot of the services are underground if there was a layer in a cadastral map that shows exact locations and plans pertaining to those services. Or, if you were to search a parcel and satellite images and GIS information come up showing the vegetation and photosynthesis happening in forestry lots. Other ideas to include in a cadastre could be:

• Heavily detailed topographic information
• Information on parcels soil content, minerals, etc.
• A map of all parcels showing every building and road from GIS data and satellite images without hesitation on if they are accurate or not.

Another thought was to ask more specific questions regarding an owners land on their census forms and then compile that data in a multipurposed cadastre as well? The ideas are limitless, they would just need some planning, logistics and coordination to be set in place and achieved like Korea did. In my opinion there could be so much more in our cadastres allowing them to be used by more people and more multipurposed.

Of course, having a vast amount a data from many different governments and sources would require great teamwork and communication between agencies. However, the outcome would be of so much value for economic and development purposes as well as real estate and statistics. I am eager to see what will happen to cadastres as the world continues to follow a path of mass technological advancement.

Do you have any ideas that you think should be added into a cadastre? Leave a comment below!

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Questions:

1. Develop a research question related to Geomatics, but not necessarily related to Land Administration.
2. Locate 3 sources that would help to answer your question: one book, one journal article, and one website.
3. For each source, provide a citation in APA or Lecture Notes 54 format, and give a brief assessment (1 paragraph/4-5 sentences) of it.

My opposed question is how does pulse-based terrestrial laser scanning work? Please note, this is also known as time of flight laser scanning.

Sources and Citations:

Website: SurvTech Solutions: How does Laser Scanning work?

This is part of SurvTech Solutions website – a survey firm with headquarters in Tampa, Florida. They are a large firm and provide service for many of the southeastern United States. Because they are a business, readers must be aware of sales pitch techniques and bias towards their company. This provides a good overview of the subject but doesn’t go in too much depth as this isn’t their goal. There website looks very professional and they have a lot of experience suggesting they know and are confident on the technicalities of the topic.

Solutions, S. (n.d.). How does Laser Scanning work? Retrieved February 4, 2019, from http://floridalaserscanning.com/3d-laser-scanning/how-does-laser-scanning-work/

Book: Airborne and Terrestrial Laser Scanning. By George Vosselman & Hans-Gerd Maas

Out of the 12 authors on this book, most of them have their masters or PhD in Geomatics or Mathematics and are professors all around the world. This suggest a wide range of knowledge and is less likely to individual bias as they each have their own background/education and are scattered across the globe. This book goes into vast amounts of detail compared to the other sources as they are all experts in the field. Many of the authors have other published work and is cited a high number of times suggesting other people also trust their judgement and work.

Vosselman, G., & Maas, H. (Eds.). (2010). Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Journal: GIM Magazine: Terrestrial Laser Scanning

This journal is a feature in GIM International magazine. This magazine is widely known and is called the “global magazine for Geomatics”. The co-author of the featured journal, Luigi Colombo, is an expert in Geomatics and 3D scanning. Many of his published writings are heavily cited by other individuals. As stated, this is in a Geomatics Magazine so it may go further in depth and use specific terms only individuals with previous knowledge on the topic will understand. Besides answering my question, it talks about the physical set up and what software to use which allows a better understanding over the topic in general. Lastly, it is from 2010 so it is necessary to acknowledge that this topic has developed and advanced but the basic principles remain the same.

Colombo, L., & Marana, B. (2010). Terrestrial laser scanning. Gim International,24(12).

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Fee Tail Estates

“And heirs of the body” these five words have the power to create a strong limitation in legal documents and who can become owners of land. These seemingly simple words were used in what is known as a “Fee Tail Estate”, however, they are no longer used in todays law.

This law entitled only direct relations of the current owner to become the owners in the future. To clarify, only children of the current owners had an expectancy interest. For example, if Person A owns the land now and has kids with B, named C and D. In a Fee Tail Estate, only C and D can inherit the land. If A and B do not reproduce, the land will revert to the original owner.

I have never heard of this type of possession of land and it interested me, so I decided to do some more research. This type of estate is not used in law today. As stated in the Nova Scotia’s Real Property Act Chapter 385 of the Revised Statutes, 1989:

All estates tail are abolished and every estate, which before the second day of May, 1865, would have been adjudged a fee tail, shall on or after the second day of May, 1865, be adjudged a fee simple and may be conveyed and devised or descend as such.

Real Property Act, Chapter 385 of the revised statutes 1989, C. 42,
§.5 (2011)

While thinking about this concept I wonder what it would be like in Canada today if this law were still in place.

I think that this could make title searches easier. It is clear that there would only be a small number of possibilities the land could be transferred to instead of the land possibly being transferred to individuals all around the world. It is believed that one-third of the process of having your land surveyed is the research before the actual fieldwork. Therefore, this could cut down the cost of having land surveyed. This document also has downsides as well and is why it isn’t used in Canadian law today.

What are your thoughts on if Fee Tail Estates were still being used in present day?

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Destruction of National Parks

As discussed in the assigned reading for module two “Harden 1968: The Tragedy of The Commons” the author touches on the negative impacts of treating the worlds National Parks as common property (see page 3, paragraph 4). This section of the reading peaked my interest because I am an individual who greatly enjoys going on hikes and taking in the Earth’s natural beauty. For this reason I decided to do some further research on this topic.

Harden suggests a few ideas on what to do about this problem and mentions allocating certain rights upon entry to the parks. As we know, this is being done today, there are many rules and regulations on what is and is not allowed to be done at a National Park such as, littering, extracting resources for personal use, etc (see Canada’s National Park Rules and Regulations at https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-78-213/FullText.html). However, even though these are set in place, Natural Parks around the world are still experiencing catastrophic damage.

As Lauren Finnessey of Johnson & Whale University stated in her thesis “Parks in the United States”  the three main negative impacts caused by tourists are:

“depletion of national resources, pollution, and physical impacts. Tourism generates land degradation, air and noise pollution, littering, trampling and the alternation of ecosystems. All of these areas of impact not only risk the well being of the land, but also the species that call these areas home (Environmental).”

Finnessey, (L), 2012, ‘The Negative Effect of Tourism on National Parks in the United States’, Bachelor of Science, Johnson & Whales University, Providence, RI.

It is clear that continuing at this rate of destruction, soon there will be nothing beautiful to see or protect in the worlds astonishing parks. With this being said, a question that must be answered immediately is “what is the next step?” Should the government change the National Parks from being common property to something else and regulate the amount of visitors each year? Should there be a new land tenure and land management system put in place? Should fines for disobeying the rules and regulations already in place be larger? I am not able to make these decisions but, I think something needs to be done in regards to how this land is treated immediately.

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