In 1871, the Canadian government instituted a land survey of the Prairie Provinces based on a unique checkerboard system covering 200 million acres. The Crown subsequently granted lands to individuals, colonization companies, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the railway, municipalities, religious groups, and later set aside land for national parks. (Control of public lands and resources was eventually transferred to provinces in 1930.)
The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 encouraged prairie settlement by giving 160 acres (a quarter section) of free land to any male (women over 18 who were the sole head of a family became eligible in 1876) farmer who cultivated at least 40 acres and built a permanent dwelling within three years. After registering for the land patent, the applicant had to provide proof that land improvements were made (in the words of the day: “proving up”) the homestead, to confirm their title to the land.
Key: How the land survey works
A numbered grid indicates the location of the land. In the Bragg Creek area, one of the first pieces of land patented by a homesteader E.M. Rochester was SW ¼ 14-23-5W5. This is the SW ¼ (southwest quarter section), Section 14,Township 23, Range 5 and West of the 5th Meridian.
Sections: Sections are numbered from 1 to 36 within a Township, approximately one square mile, 640 acres, and each section is divided into quarters of 160 acres (NE, NW, SE, SW).
Townships: Townships are six-mile-wide rows, numbered from south to north, starting at the Canadian border. Bragg Creek and area is roughly located in the southern portion of Township 23 and the western portion of Township 22.
Ranges: Ranges are six-mile-wide columns of land, running south to north and numbered east to west (in the Western Canadian Land System) starting at Range 1 after each meridian. All of Bragg Creek and area is in the 5th Range.
Meridians: These baselines for surveying also run south to north; Bragg Creek and area is west of the 5th Meridian.
Photo Credits:
Rochester Deed, “Search: Land Grants of Western Canada, 1870-1930”; Edwin Milton Rochester, Government of Canada, March 13, 1902.
“Prospecting for land near Bragg Creek, Alberta”, 1906, [NA-1858}. Glenbow Archives, University of Calgary.