Joseph S. Harris and the U.S. Northwest Boundary Survey, 1857-1861
Joseph S. Harris and the U.S. Northwest Boundary Survey, 1857-1861

Author: Anne P. Streeter

Publisher: Trafford Publishing

Published: 2012-05-08

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 1466936231

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Precis of Joseph S. Harris In 1857, twenty-year old Joseph Harris joins the U.S. Northwest Boundary Commission whose assignment was to define the boundary between the United States and British Canada. As an astronomer and surveyor, he has been trained by the U.S. Coast Survey to use the new Zenith telescope and the new Talcott method of astronomical surveying. In over 200 letters to his family and in his Autobiography, he describes the task of surveying 410 miles along the 49th parallel from the Gulf of Georgia to the crest of the Rocky Mountains. In accomplishing this, Harris describes the political difficulties of working with a parallel British Commission, of the outbreak of the Pig War, and of working with local Native Americans. The Survey team astronomically surveys an unchartered wilderness crossing both the Cascade and Rocky Mountains With their recalcitrant mules, they not only negotiate steep mountains and cross dangerous rivers but they also cut a 20 foot swath through much of this wilderness, connecting 14 astronomical stations. After three years, the field work has to be rushed to a finish because Congress would approve no more appropriations now the Civil War had started. Since the Official Report was lost, this account stands as the only record of this important Survey.

Author: Anne P. Streeter

Publisher: Trafford Publishing

Published: 2012-02

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 1426975716

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"Good fences make good neighbors" comes from Robert Frost's poem Mending Walls which relates to traditions and rituals antedating the Romans. The god of boundaries, which they named Terminus, was not invented by the Romans, but he became one of their important household gods. Annually Terminus was honored in a ritual which not only reaffirmed boundaries but which also provided the occasion for predetermined traditional festivities among neighbors.

Arc of the Medicine Line
Arc of the Medicine Line

Author: Tony Rees

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 9780803217911

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Today the borderland between Canada and the United States is a wide, empty sweep of wheat fields and pasture, measured by a grid of gravel roads that sees little traffic and few people who do not make their lives there. It has been much this way for more than a century now, but there was a moment when the great silence shrouding this place was broken, and that moment changed it forever. Arc of the Medicine Line is a compelling narrative of that moment?the completion of the official border between the United States and Canada in 1874. ø In late July of 1874, the Sweetgrass Hills sheltered the greatest accumulation of scientists, teamsters, scouts, cooks, and soldiers to be seen in this part of the world before the coming of the railways. The men of the boundary commissions?American, British, and Canadian?established an astronomical station and the last of their supply depots as they prepared to draw the Medicine Line across the final hundred of the nearly nine hundred miles between Manitoba?s Lake of the Woods and the Continental Divide. In the brief weeks the surveyors and soldiers spent in Milk River country, they witnessed, and played a singular part in, the beginning of the end for the open West. That hot, dry summer of 1874 marked the outside world?s final assault on this last frontier.

Laying Down the Lines
Laying Down the Lines

Author: Judy Larmour

Publisher: Brindle and Glass

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9781897142042

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Between the Fourth Meridian and the Continental Divide is a vast land with some of the most varied landscapes, difficult terrain, and treacherous climates in Canada. The challenge of exploring, surveying and mapping the territory now known as Alberta holds some of the most fascinating stories in the 100-year-old province's history. From the first excursions of David Thompson and John Palliser to the ongoing work of surveying for industry and development, from the first hand-drawn maps and sextants to modern satellite imaging and computer modelling, historian Judy Larmour captures the grand arcs and the fascinating details of the dramatic centuries-long struggle to find and mark place.

New Histories for Old
New Histories for Old

Author: Theodore Binnema

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2011-11-01

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0774840129

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Scholarly depictions of the history of Aboriginal people in Canada have changed dramatically since the 1970s when Arthur J. ("Skip") Ray entered the field. New Histories for Old examines this transformation while extending the scholarship on Canada's Aboriginal history in new directions. This collection combines essays by prominent senior historians, geographers, and anthropologists with contributions by new voices in these fields. The chapters reflect themes including Native struggles for land and resources under colonialism, the fur trade, "Indian" policy and treaties, mobility and migration, disease and well-being, and Native-newcomer relations.