Bill Chapman, surveyor of rugged terrain

Land surveyors were essential to the growth and development of our province as the mining and logging industries developed and grew.

According to WorkBC, surveyors “plan, direct and carry out legal surveys to establish the location of real property boundaries, contours and other natural or human-made features. They prepare and maintain documents and plans pertaining to legal surveys” (workbc.ca/careers/2154).

In West Vancouver, where land is the com- mon currency, the role of the surveyor is crucial. Chapman Land Surveying Ltd. has been serving our community, and our province, for over 100 years. The company’s roots go back to 1886, when George Dawson and the Williams brothers conducted surveys well before the designation of land surveyor was formalized.

Surveying was one of the Elliott and Chapman families’ enterprises, operating in the early years of our province, surveying our corner of the world years before its incorporation as West Vancouver.

The firm of Williams Brothers and Dawson became Dawson & Elliott in 1908, then Elliott & Hewitt in 1911. The Elliott brothers ran the company from 1931, adding the Chapman name when Bill’s father, Ray, joined the company in 1953. The Elliott and Chap- man families were related, and both families were engaged, separately, in various Vancouver businesses.

Ray Chapman began by working with his uncle, John Elliott, surveying in the Peace River area in 1931 and rejoined the company in the early 1950s. When his uncle Elliott retired in 1955, Ray set up Ray E. Chapman, B.C.L.S. in West Vancouver.

Bill remembers: “I was working on the day I received my commission in 1975. Dad gave me the good news. Then he told me that he and Mum were off to Europe for a month –starting the next day! We became partners that day with a handshake.”

The company became Chapman and Chapman and, finally, Chapman Land Surveying Ltd. The partnership lasted until Ray’s death in 2007. Ray Chapman was at the office every day until he died in his 99th year.

An active Rotarian, Ray received the West Vancouver Heritage Award and was named West Vancouver Citizen of the Year. He served as president and was a life member of the B.C. Land Surveyors As sociation. Son, Bill also served as president of the association, is also a life member, and was also named West Vancouver Citizen of the Year.

While attending university, and articling at the family business, Bill was involved in sports. He and his twin brother Fred were on the rowing team at the 1967 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, winning a silver medal for Canada. They were in good company: North Vancouver’s Harry Jerome ran, and West Vancouver’s Elaine Tanner swam for Canada that year.

Bill and his fellow rowers trained over two years to compete for a place on the Canadian team at the 1972 Olympics. Following the qualifying race, the selection committee decided against sending their boat and an Olympic experience became a distant dream. A different dream was realized when Bill’s daughter Chelsea was born that year, two weeks prior to the trial. Her brother Todd was born in 1975.

Bill converted his affiliation with sports to service. He was a founding director of the B.C. Rowing Association, captain of the Vancouver Rowing Club, coached his daughter’s rowing team and several other high school crews. He also coached and umpired Little League baseball for many years and applied his surveying skills to measure out baseball fields.

Bill served as director and president of the West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce and is a founding member of the COHO Festival Society, developed as an offshoot of the chamber.

Bill chairs the Nature House Society, established to create an environmental learning centre in Ambleside, an idea that grew out of his friendship with Lloyd Williams, the last private owner of Navvy Jack House.

As a director of the West Vancouver

Streamkeeper Society, Bill surveyed many West Vancouver creeks to support the society’s salmon management programmes.

Bill’s interest in history is not limited to West Vancouver. He and his wife Sandy joined work parties comprising fellow land surveyors at Fort Steele Historic Town. Their task was to move, restore and refurbish McVittie House and the Land Surveying Office. Bill was also with the North American Land Surveyors (NALS) Canoe Team for part of the 2011 David Thompson Columbia Brigade journey from Invermere, B.C. to Astoria, Oregon.

Bill’s interest in history is due in part to the company’s longevity and its role in the story of West Vancouver. The company’s 90th anniversary was celebrated with historical displays and a party attended by over 400 people. A smaller exhibition of the company’s historical collection was mounted at West Vancouver Museum the following year.

Bill commemorated West Vancouver’s centennial in 2012 with a memorable exhibition featuring historical displays and stories of local loggers and surveyors at the West Vancouver Seniors’ Activity Centre. With its years of records and plans, all meticulously filed, the displays of photographs and tools of the trade, and the collection of relics and artefacts, the Chapman Land Surveying office could have been an eastern outpost of West Vancouver Archives.

“Chapman Land Surveying has donated records relating to the company’s work in West Vancouver, as well as field books and survey plans, and photographs, dating back to the company’s origins over a century ago,” says archivist, Reto Tschan. “They will be an invaluable resource relating to the history of development in our community and for understanding the work of surveying in the varied and challenging terrain of our province. Providing a permanent home for these records and photographs is a highlight of my career as an archivist.”

In 2022, after over 100 years of operation, Bill Chapman made the decision to close the operating portion of the company, which is now part of Hobbs, Winter and MacDonald, located in North Vancouver. Chapman Land Surveying continues as a consulting company.

“I thought I had retired,” Bill says, “but the phone keeps ringing.”

With calls on Bill’s expertise to interpret local bylaws, policies and procedures to help homeowners make better use of their properties, retirement may not be on the cards just yet.

To mark the end of the line for Chapman Land Surveying, Bill commissioned a history of the company. Rain and Rugged Terrain: Over a Century of Chapman Land Surveying in British Columbia, written by Jay Sherwood, will be published later this year.

Bill is participating in the Local Voices: Local History series, presented by West Vancouver Historical Society in partnership with West Vancouver Memorial Library. He will not be talking about his volunteer service. That’s not the style of this ‘behind the scenes’ man. He will instead talk about surveying and his family company’s role in the development of B.C. and of West Vancouver.

Join Bill for Rain and Rugged Terrain, on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, at the library’s Welsh Hall. Doors open at 6 p.m. Seating is limited and can be reserved via the library website. Pre-publication orders for copies of Rain and Rugged Terrain can be made at Bill’s talk.

ANNE BAIRD ANNE’S CORNER