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Surveyors of the Past ed the proposal to his colleague. Sir Adolphe Caron, Minister of Militia. A committee waited on the latter, urging Surveyors of The Past official acceptance of the offer of such a -------------------------- BY CHARLES FAIRHALL---------------------------------------------- corps, armed and mounted, and to act as intelligence men, scouts or as mounted rifles. The scheme was approved after the Minister had consulted by telegraph SURVEYORS AND THE with the Commanding Officer of the North West expedition, Major-General NORTHWEST REBELLION Frederick Middleton. The surveyors were then advised to appoint a captain to One of the most fascinating charac­ in April, 1882, took place in Ottawa. command the proposed unit. Arthur ters to emerge from the pages of Canada’s Word of the hostilities at Duck Lake Oliver Wheeler, who had qualified as a colourful past is Louis Riel. A recent reached the capital while the association Provincial Land Surveyor in Manitoba C.B.C. television programme has offered was in session and the news caused a in 1881 and as a Dominion Land Survey­ us a much more sympathetic portrait of considerable stir among those in attend­ or in the following year, was first offered this ill-starred man than that afforded by ance. Many of these men had surveyed the post. Although Wheeler had surveyed our history books. It is interesting to in the North West and realized at once Canadian Pacific Railway townsites in note the role surveyors played in the that the outbreak of violence would result the West in 1882 and township outlines unfolding drama. in a serious suspension of western survey in the following season, he felt he was not work for the 1885 season. experienced enough in conditions in the In the summer of 1869, Lieut.-Col. Midwest and declined the nomination. On April 1 an informal meeting of J. Stoughton Dennis (later to become The command was next offered to Lewis the surveyers took place in Russell Canada’s first Surveyor-General), Milner R. Ord, who had been appointed a House, a centrally-located Ottawa hotel, Hart and Major A. C. Webb, three Dominion Land Surveyor three years for the purpose of organizing a surveyors’ Provincial Land Surveyors from Ontario, previously. He, too, demurred and John militia unit to take an active part in any were actively engaged in the establish­ Stoughton Dennis Jr. was then elected. ment of township outlines in the Red military expedition formed to quell the River Territory, in anticipation of the disturbances. After discussion it was de­ The Dominion Land Surveyors In­ transfer of Prince Rupert’s Land from cided to ask ten Dominion Land Survey­ telligence Corps was quickly formed and the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Do­ ors to each provide four assistants (men proceeded by Pullman car to Winnipeg minion of Canada. Despite Dennis’ best who had seen survey service in the North by way of Chicago and St. Paul, arriving efforts to reach a basis of understanding West and who were familiar with condi­ in the Manitoba capital on April 11. At with the Metis leaders, a confrontation tions there) to form a corps of fifty men. Winnipeg more surveyors were recruited soon occurred. The following day a deputation waited for the unit and weapons were obtained on Sir David L. Macpherson, Minister as well as saddles and other equipment. On October 11, in the area slightly of the Interior, who strongly recommend- The Corps then proceeded to Qu’Appelle east of the recently established Winnipeg where horses were supplied from the Meridian, a group of Metis headed by winter depot for survey horses. The se­ Louis Riel approached Major Webb and quel of this move is related in Reminis­ his survey party. With his foot firmlv cences of a Bungle, the memoirs of a planted on the surveyor’s chain. Riel corpsman published anonymously but proclaimed his opposition to the Feder­ believed to be the impressions of Lieut. al Government’s presence in the Terri­ Lewis R. Ord: tory. “Our captain [then] prepared to put On March 4, 1870, Riel ordered us through our drill . “Pre-pareto- the execution of Thomas Scott, a member mount! Mount! Some of the troopers get of John Snow’s survey party carrying out up so rapidly that they fall over on the road surveys in the Red River Settle­ other side; some crawl up like a boy up a ment. This precipitous act led to the greased pole at a fair; here a horse stands dispatchment of Federal troops to the as if he had taken root; another pivots area, causing Riel to flee in great haste round and round on his own axis, and to seek sanctuary in the United States. many signify their distaste for riders by bursting from line like lightning from a He returned in 1885, ready to help cloud, bucking strenuously . we are redress the grievances of his people, and about as disorderly a lot as one could care at Batoche on March 18, the North to see . some were really good riders West Rebellion was bom. Once aeain but a great many would have felt much surveyors were directly involved, but not safer on the ground where, indeed, several in the manner one would suppose. were violently deposited during the first encounter with their charges.” The following excerpt from ‘Men & Meridians’. Vol. 2, is reprinted here Orders were finally received to with the kind permission of author Don travel on April 20 to Swift Current and Thomson, to whom I am indebted for from there to serve as a despatch-carrying past and present favours. unit, linking Swift Current to forces in the field. After the engagement at Fish Tn the spring of 1885 the annual Creek the Intelligence Corps joined the meetinq of the association of Dominion Scene of military action main column of the Expedition. In his Land Surveyors, organized in Winnipeg 1885 Rebellion special report covering the events of May THE ONTARIO LAND SURVEYOR, WINTER 1980 11 10, 1885, Major-General Middleton 9 firing had begun. Fighting continued in having been shot through the head while states: “The Land Surveyor’s Scouts, 50 this operation over a period of four days. lying with the rest of his troop in a strong, under Captain Dennis, joined my Middleton, to the dismay of his Canadian bluff on our left”. (Only 8 men in all force in the afternoon . The general, militiamen, followed a most cautious were killed in the Expedition in its attack in his diary entries, seemed disposed to policy. Soon after the first shots were on Batoche.) avoid use of the more impressive title fired in this engagement he sent his chief In the last words of the surveyor- “Intelligence Corps”. Captain Dennis of staff, Lord Melgund, later Earl of reporter, “We are a hard and careless lot himself frankly admits that the latter Minto and Governor-General of Canada, as a rule, we surveyors, rough associates, name for the unit, though more official, in great haste to Ottawa to plead for the hard work, and lack of women’s society was less correct than the term used by the despatch of more men. He little knew the causes men to grow indifferent to the general as the ‘intelligence’ it had dared fighting calibre of men already under his feelings of others, but I noticed that the to offer the high command on several command and, least of all, of the redoubt­ troop was quiet and less joking carried occasions “was not looked upon with able Surveyors’ Corps. Ord takes up on. The first gap had been made in our special favour”. Another member of the the story of events: ranks and we could faintly imagine how Corps observed in this connection that Kippen would be missed in the little home “we were looked upon as very small “Wheeler suggested that we should circle in Eastern Canada [Perth, Ontario] potatoes by the gold-laced gentry of the go out and occupy one of the rifle pits . His quaint sayings and cheerful regular militia”. Derisively they were that had been dug along the top of the river bank . and for want of better laugh are gone from No. 1 tent. We labelled as the “49 officers and one cannot realize the sorrow of his parents scout” because of the high proportion of employment we did so.” It was after this sally that Lieut. Wheeler was shot when the first warning of their loss reach­ commision-holders, 22 out of a total en­ es them in a brief telegram, ‘A. W. listment of 53. Twenty-two men of the through the muscles of his arm near the Kippen, Surveyors’ Corps, killed’.” Corps were Dominion Land Surveyors, shoulder. including William Crawford of Milverton, May 12, a crucial day in the devel­ On May 15 and for some days Ontario, the first man to receive a Dom­ opment of the battle, dawned bright and following, the Surveyors’ Corps and inion Land Surveyor’s certificate from a warm, “ . were it not for the sight of Major Boulton’s Mounted Infantry were Board of Examiners (June 17, 1875). the hospital tent and its wounded, and ordered to round up hostile Indians Two other Dominion Land Surveyors, the crack of the skirmishers’ rifles near (Big Bear and his followers) and any Liet. E. W. Hubbell and Capt. J. L. Reid, the church, we could almost think it a rebel fugitives. Riel was brought into enlisted in the Midland Battalion for the survey.” Middleton had continued in his camp by scouts and was received court­ campaign in the North West.
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