Most images have been provided by Ken Allred, ALS, CLS and Patrick Ringwood, BCLS, CLS

A History of Surveying

Cadastral Plan - Mesopatamia - 1700 BC

The Rope Stretchers

• The Pyramids• Pythagoras • Flooding of the Nile• Early cadastral records

to 3400 BC

Early Egyptian Civilization

Compass developed•Chinese invention - south pointing spoon (lodestone)

•Used as a divining tool in the practice of feng shui

•Magnetized needles used as direction pointers in the 8th century AD in China

•Ca. 850 and 1050 common as marine navigational aids

1st Century – 11th Century

Leonard Digges Invented the Theodolite - England

1571

The Sextant - 1730

• Samuel de Champlain

• Peter Fidler

• David Thompson

• Captain James Cook

Early Explorers

Samuel de Champlain

1608

Samuel de Champlain

Philip Turnor & Peter Fidler

Lake Athabasca - 1791

From the book: Canada’s Forgotten Surveyor by Peter Fidler

David Thompson Columbia River 1806

David Thompson

Peter Fidler

Elk Point, AlbertaFrom the ALS News Magazine

Technological Revolution

• 1950 – Geodimeter – Tellurometer

• 1970 – Desk Top Computer– Total Stations

• 1990 – Geographic Information Systems– Satellite Positioning Systems

• 2000– High Resolution Imagery