Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (Winner)

The settlement history of British Columbia—this rough and beautiful child of imperial ambition—is different from that of any other province in Canada. The work of land surveyors has been fundamental in that history. The story of their work is awe-inspiring.

Born less than 150 years ago, the future province was then largely a vast wilderness occupied by societies without written maps delineating townsites, resource tenures, and property boundaries. Within the space of a few years, that would change forever. Men from London and Victoria made their way along the trails and up the waterways of the land, 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 fabric of the province's economic and settlement structure. They are the lines that say, "This is our land."

This popular history tells the remarkable story of the men and women who measured the province: their adventures, challenges, and accomplishments. Using the most basic equipment, surveyors endured arduous work conditions, witnessed the tragedy of colonial impact on aboriginal peoples, protected the interests of prospectors, settlers, and entrepreneurs, and left their names on rivers, mountains, streets, and towns all over British Columbia. Among their numbers have been Lieutenant-Governors, mayors, teachers, and historians. In the last fifty years, they have gone from using crow's quill pens and linen to computers and satellite technology. The mountainous terrain demanded that the province lead the world in aerial surveying technology and use of helicopters.

Made to Measure paints an engaging, vivid portrait of surveyors and their influence on British Columbia, linked inextricably to both past and future settlement of this remarkable province.

HISTORY • 320 pp • 6.5 x 9.5
ISBN 1-55039-153-4 • hardcover • $34.95
maps • 100 b/w photos