The Association of Canada Lands Surveyors (ACLS) is the national licensing body for professionals surveying in the three Canadian territories, in the Federal parks, on Aboriginal reserves, as well as on and under the surface of Canada's oceans. [1] It is a self-governing, non-profit, non-governmental organization that manages the activities of its members across Canada in the field of cadastral (boundary or legal) surveying. [2]
Of the Canadian surveying associations, the ACLS has the largest jurisdiction in terms of geographic size; it covers about 10,900,000 square kilometres, which is nearly seven times the surface area of the Province of Quebec. [3]
The ACLS is the eleventh licensing surveying association in Canada. Cadastral surveying in the provinces is governed by provincial legislation and each Canadian province has a surveying association which is responsible for regulating its members. However, as provincial legislation does not cover "Canada Lands" ACLS is an important part of governing Canada's boundaries. [4]
On April 24, 1874, the Association of Dominion Land Surveyors was founded. Although that organization eventually became the Association of Manitoba Land Surveyors, [5] federal land surveyors were called Dominion Land Surveyors (DLS) until the Canada Lands Surveys Act passed on March 31, 1979. [6]
After a few attempts at affiliating themselves with a provincial land surveying organization, federal land surveyors reclaimed the Association of Dominion Land Surveyors in the early 1900s, and then became a branch of the Canadian Institute of Surveying (CIS). During this time, federal land surveyors had no association of their own. [7]
The Association of Canada Lands Surveyors was officially incorporated on May 24, 1985, and began an initiative to become self-regulating. ACLS assumed its responsibilities as a national, self-regulating Association on March 18, 1999, when the Canada Lands Surveyors Act came into force. On this date, the ACLS also became a licensing body. [8]
"Canada Lands" is a specific term to define lands that fall under any of the following criteria:
Any lands belonging to Her Majesty in right of Canada or of which the Government of Canada has power to dispose that are situated in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut or in any National Park of Canada and any lands that are
Surveyors use skills in the science of measurement and positioning to accurately measure the true dimensions of property. This is used to prepare plot plans, real property reports, place boundary markers, and other activities ensuring the accuracy of public property records. [10] Surveyors are an important part of marking boundaries, even with the advances in technologies such as Google Maps. [11]
ACLS licensed members are the only individuals legally authorized to perform cadastral surveys on a special category of lands called "Canada Lands". [12] Cadastral surveying is the branch of surveying that encompasses all activities related to establishing and defining the extent of a legal interest in land. These activities are also referred to as boundary or legal surveying.
In order to survey on Canada Lands, a professional surveyor must first obtain a commission from the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors. This requires the surveyor to pass a series of exams [13] on various topics, such as Acts and Regulations Relating to Surveys of Canada Lands, Property Rights Systems on Canada Lands, and Government Structures and Aboriginal Government Issues.
Once a commission is received, the surveyor is then eligible to have a regular membership with the ACLS.
To complete the last step and obtain a licence, a surveyor must be a regular member of the ACLS and have two years of experience and practical training in surveying in the previous five years.
All licence holders of the ACLS must complete a mandatory 40 hours of continuing professional development over a period of three years. This is to ensure that all practising Canada Lands Surveyors are up to date with new technology and methods.
All licensed Canada Lands surveyors are required to have their work reviewed by the association practice review manager [14]
Canada Lands surveyors specialize in one or more disciplines and often have some knowledge of all types of surveying, so it is choice of the professional to find the best solution to any technical or management problem related to measurement and spatial positioning.
Types of surveying include:
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage systems, pipelines, structural components of buildings, and railways.
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is called a land surveyor. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations, such as the designed positions of structural components for construction or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales.
The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1785 to survey land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, following the end of the American Revolution. Beginning with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio, the PLSS has been used as the primary survey method in the United States. Following the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory platted lands in the Northwest Territory. The Surveyor General was later merged with the General Land Office, which later became a part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Today, the BLM controls the survey, sale, and settling of lands acquired by the United States.
The Dominion Land Survey is the method used to divide most of Western Canada into one-square-mile (2.6 km2) sections for agricultural and other purposes. It is based on the layout of the Public Land Survey System used in the United States, but has several differences. The DLS is the dominant survey method in the Prairie provinces, and it is also used in British Columbia along the Railway Belt, and in the Peace River Block in the northeast of the province.
The minister of Crown–Indigenous relations is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet, one of two ministers who administer Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), the department of the Government of Canada which is responsible for administering the Indian Act and other legislation dealing with "Indians and lands reserved for the Indians" under subsection 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The minister is also more broadly responsible for overall relations between the federal government and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.
Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the "discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information". Under another definition, it consists of products, services and tools involved in the collection, integration and management of geographic (geospatial) data. It is also known as geomatic(s) engineering. Surveying engineering was the widely used name for geomatic(s) engineering in the past.
In Canada, an Indian reserve is specified by the Indian Act as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Indian reserves are the areas set aside for First Nations, an indigenous Canadian group, after a contract with the Canadian state, and are not to be confused with land claims areas, which involve all of that First Nations' traditional lands: a much larger territory than any reserve.
A survey township, sometimes called a Congressional township or just township, as used by the United States Public Land Survey System, is a nominally-square area of land that is nominally six U.S. survey miles on a side. Each 36-square-mile township is divided into 36 sections of one square mile each. The sections can be further subdivided for sale.
The chain is a unit of length equal to 66 feet. It is subdivided into 100 links or 4 rods. There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. In metric terms, it is 20.1168 m long. By extension, chainage is the distance along a curved or straight survey line from a fixed commencing point, as given by an odometer.
A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country. Often it is represented graphically in a cadastral map.
Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, and prevent unlawful disposal. The information recorded and the protection provided by land registration varies widely by jurisdiction.
The lands administrative divisions of Western Australia refer to subdivisions of the state of Western Australia for cadastral purposes, most of which have been in place since the 19th century. The state is divided up for this purpose into five land divisions, which in turn are subdivided into land districts, which correspond to counties in other Australian states. These districts are then subdivided further into numbered locations, as well as gazetted townsites. Together, they form part of the lands administrative divisions of Australia.
Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is the public service department of New Zealand charged with geographical information and surveying functions as well as handling land titles, and managing Crown land and property. The minister responsible is the Minister for Land Information, and was formerly the Minister of Survey and Land Information. LINZ was established in 1996 following the restructure of the Department of Survey and Land Information (DOSLI), which was itself one of the successor organisations to the Department of Lands and Survey.
Land administration is the way in which the rules of land tenure are applied and made operational. Land administration, whether formal or informal, comprises an extensive range of systems and processes to administer. The processes of land administration include the transfer of rights in land from one party to another through sale, lease, loan, gift and inheritance; the regulating of land and property development; the use and conservation of the land; the gathering of revenues from the land through sales, leasing, and taxation; and the resolving of conflicts concerning the ownership and the use of land. Land administration functions may be divided into four components: Juridical, regulatory, fiscal, and information management. These functions of land administration may be organized in terms of agencies responsible for surveying and mapping, land registration, land valuation and land revenue generation. The purpose and scope of this knowledge domain appear from the following introducing notes:
Cadastral surveying is the sub-field of cadastre and surveying that specialises in the establishment and re-establishment of real property boundaries. It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dimensions, areas and certain rights associated with properties. This is regardless of whether they are on land, water or defined by natural or artificial features. It is an important component of the legal creation of properties. A cadastral surveyor must apply both the spatial-measurement principles of general surveying and legal principles such as respect of neighboring titles.
The Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors (ABCLS) is a self-governing, non-profit, non-governmental organization which sets educational requirements, examines for admission, and regulates professional land surveyors within British Columbia, Canada. The ABCLS is responsible for developing bylaws and guidelines for the conduct of its members, establishing and administering entry requirements for the profession, and liaising with governmental bodies and other associations to improve the quality of the profession's service to the public.
Surveying in North America is heavily influenced by the United States Public lands survey system. It inherits the basis of its land tenure from the United Kingdom, as well as the other countries that established colonies, namely Spain and France.
Surveying in Australia is triangulation-based and shares many similarities with the United Kingdom, including the title deed system. However, a distinctive feature of surveying in Australia is the Torrens System, where real estate records are held in a central deposit and guaranteed by the state.
The cartography of New Zealand is the history of surveying and creation of maps of New Zealand. Surveying in New Zealand began with the arrival of Abel Tasman in the mid 17th century. Cartography and surveying have developed in incremental steps since that time till the integration of New Zealand into a global system based on GPS and the New Zealand Geodetic Datum 2000.
William Pearce (1848–1930), was a "surveyor, statistician, planner, and administrator in western Canada. He served in the federal government from 1874 to 1904 as federal surveyor and administrator, as federal advisor for western development and as Western consultant for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. As Inspector of Dominion Lands Agencies, he oversaw the "development and allocation of all land, forests, mineral and water resources" from "Winnipeg to the eastern foothills of the Rockies"—representing 400,000 square miles of land, earning his nickname—"Czar of the West". He was known for his work on the Bow River watershed irrigation systems that transformed lands in southern Alberta into fertile land.
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