A Bleary Eyed Surveyor and a Helluva Engineer

A BLEARY EYED SURVEYOR . . .

AND A HELLUVA ENGINEER Ken Johnson, P.Eng. Edmonton, AB Originally published in the BC Professional Engineer, 1990 These words are well known to many engineering graduates in Canada as being part of the engineer's theme song. The image of that bleary eyed surveyor is easy to bring to mind to those of us who have spent time gazing through a transit, however, it is time for this image to be updated.

By definition, a land surveyor is described as a professional engaged in collecting by measurement, all facts needed for determining the boundaries, size, position, shape, contour, ownership, value, et cetera, of country, coast, district estate, et cetera. In the past this meant surveyors would spend a great deal of time in the field collecting the necessary measurements needed for determining boundaries, size, position and shape.

One can always recognize a land surveyor walking along a street by the fact that he is always looking down in search of a corner post. The older land surveyors will not take shortcuts because they insist on following "true line", while the younger surveyors will walk anywhere knowing the value of a random traverse.

My father, who has been land surveying for close to 50 years, holds a lot of pride in the fact that he has seen the transition from the "antique" transit to the modern digital theodolites.

Parallel to this he also saw the transitions from the original sixty-six foot "chain", to electronic distance measurement. These transitions have all occurred in the span of less than 50 years. While surveying in the southeastern part of BC in the 1940's, my dad's best friend was a doubleheaded axe; one side was kept dull for barbed wire, and the other sharp for trees.

Parallel to the evolution of the field instruments was the evolution of the computation instruments. In the beginning, trig tables and log tables were the only available means of computation, and then with the advent of mechanical calculators, the ease of completing field calculations was improved.

The introduction of electronic calculators in the survey industry, back in the early seventies, has evolved to a point where office calculations are almost trivial. The "compass rule" and the "transit rule" for traverse adjustment have been replaced by "least squares adjustment", which the computer performs with ease. Computer aided drafting has also revolutionized the entire drawing representation process.

A final area of influence which electronics has had on the survey industry is the global positioning system (GPS). Global positioning has, in the past, been an expensive and time

consuming exercise. However, the GPS technology available today is relatively inexpensive and may provide an accuracy to within centimetres, or better.

The road to becoming a commissioned land surveyor in Canada has also changed. In western Canada, those wishing to become a commissioned land surveyor are encouraged to obtain a university degree in surveying before their commission. This is creating a generation of highpowered theorists who can do a least squares adjustment, from basic principles, in their sleep.

The major intent of this new approach is to standardize the technical requirements for land surveying, because the technical requirements for surveying in Alberta differ very little from those in British Columbia. One could argue the fact that slope chaining is more prevalent in BC, however this only results in a charley-horse in your neck.

Some of the oldtimers may argue that the new generation of highly educated land surveyors lack the field skills of survey evidence evaluation, managing a survey crew, and generally functioning in an efficient manner in the bush. In the old days a prospective commissioned land surveyor was required to article with a "master" for a minimum of four years, during which time he worked fulltime and wrote a series of fundamental examinations. Upon being discharged from articles, the "survey student" would write examinations on the legal legislation to do with land surveying.

The changes to the field of land surveying in the past fifty years have been very dramatic.

With these changes, and the inevitable changes to come, the "bleary-eyed surveyor" may someday be the result of staring at a computer monitor, and not through the telescope of a transit.

Ken Johnson, M.A.Sc., P.Eng. is a land use planner and environmental engineer working in Edmonton. He is an aspiring writer and historian, who fondly recalls his own days as a bleary eyed surveyor.