Morrison Parsons Bridgland
Alberta’s Land Surveying History

Morrison Parsons Bridgland [1878–1948]

b. 1878 — Toronto, Ontario, Canada
d. 1948 — Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Morrison Parsons Bridgland [1878–1948]

Natasha Boyd
Fraser Headwaters Alliance

Born Natasha D. Smith in Sussex, England, in 1906, Natasha Boyd moved to North America with her sister and mother in 1912. Boyd earned a master’s degree in paleontologyfrom the University of California at Berkeley in 1938. She settled in the Robson Valley with her husband Carl in 1973. She devoted much of her time to painting wildlife in its natural habitat. She was active in the Blackwater Producers Cooperative and helped establish the McBride Arts Council.

The Natasha Boyd Wetland Conservation Area comprises 65 hectares (160 acres) of low lying wetlands and upland forests. The woodland area, which is made up of paper birch, trembling aspen, white and black spruce, lodgepole pine and western red cedar, surrounds clusters of inter-connected wetlands. The wetlands include bogs (areas with deep, nutrient poor, acidic soils), fens (more nutrient rich areas with deep peat soils vegetated by sedges and grasses), and shallow open waters.

More information is available at Fraser Headwaters Allliance and the Land Conservancy of British Columbia.

Mary T. S. Schäffer Warren [1861–1939]

b. 1861 Pennsylvania, USA
d. 1939 — Banff, Alberta, Canada

Mary Townsend Sharples (Schaffer) (Warren), 1861-1939, was born to moderately wealthy Quaker parents at Westchester, Pennsylvania. She first visited the Canadian Rockies and Selkirk Mountains in 1888 with her friend Mary Vaux and returned the next year with her husband, Dr. Charles Schaffer.

Origin of the name unknown.

James Herrick McGregor, P.L.S. [1869–1915]

b. 1869 — Montreal, Quebec
d. 1915 — Ypres, Belgium

Charles Francis Hanington [1848–1930]

b. 1848
d. 1930

Edward Worrell Jarvis [1846–1894]

b. 1846 — Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
d. 1894 — Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Born at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on 26 January 1846, son of Edward James Jarvis and Elizabeth Gray, he trained as an engineer at Cambridge University. Between 1864 and 1867, he did railway work in England before returning to Canada in 1868 and was an assistant to Sandford Fleming [1827–1915] during construction of the Intercolonial Railway in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

He first came to Manitoba in 1871 as a member of a government party surveying the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was later a partner in the lumber business of W. J. Macaulay and Company. He was the first Registrar of the University of Manitoba, a founder of the Manitoba Historical Society, an early alderman on the Winnipeg City Council, and an officer in the North West Mounted Police. He designed the Broadway Bridge, which opened in 1882.
He died at Calgary, North West Territories [now Alberta] on 24 November 1894. He is commemorated by Jarvis Street in Winnipeg. A collection of his journals are held by the Archives of Manitoba (MG6 A2).

“Jarvis and Major Charles Francis Hanington [1848–1930] of Ottawa made an adventurous winter journey across the Rockies in 1875. The pass through which they crossed the mountains was named Jarvis Pass by the Geographic Board of Canada and the name Jarvis is also borne by a mountain on the south side of the pass opposite Mount Hanington. The exploration was undertaken to see if this route across the mountains would be a practicable one for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The elevation of the pass, about 5,000 feet, proved too high. The starting point of the journey was Quesnel, which was left on December 9, 1874, and a 1,000-mile journey, mostly on foot, occupying five and a half months was concluded at Winnipeg on May 21, 1875.” (extract from Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, June 1927).

Named after Simon Fraser [1776–1862], the namesake of the Fraser River.