Metis and Surveying: Tensions Regarding Place

MICHAEL M. POMEDLI

St. Thomas More College

University of Saskatchewan

Commenting on the strengths of William Kurelek's prairie paintings,

Francois-Marc Gagnon (1991:viii, ix) notes the feelings of vastness and

boundlessness that they elicit. Such are a writer's and a painter's responses.

How did earlier peoples respond to that same immensity? In this essay, I want to remain in the prairie context and examine two approaches to place.

The first approach is homey, showing a generally lived and contextualized

stance toward the environment. For our study, the attitudes and life of the Metis reflect this stance. The second approach considers place cognitively,

takes a position above or about place and purports to be objective. Such a

stance has a long history and is one of the ramifications of the development of western science and technology. In this paper the surveying system rep­

resents such an approach. While these two approaches to place have many different aspects, such as political, economic, and social, I will concentrate

predominantly on understanding the mindset of each, highlighting the for-

getfulness of the lived reality in the theory and practice of surveying as

evidenced by politicians, expansionists, and surveyors.

1. Metis Approach to Place

There is no better way to understand Metis perspectives on place than to

listen to their reminiscences. That great Metis storyteller, Louis Goulet,

recalls times in the mid and late 19th century when his people, steeped in

the old, were standing on the threshold of the new:

Normally we went to Wood Mountain, but when the buffalo drew back into the area of the Cypress Hills, we followed them. Finally, later on, when they took refuge in the rough country of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado, it was along the Missouri River we went to find the few remaining herds. Now that was a great life! Cre mardi gras! When I think about it I can easily understand why the old-timers loved it so much. Just imagine! a huge country able to feed a population with no more effort than hunting the

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plentiful game. Ah! what a splendid picture I'd paint of that incomparable time of freedom and plenty, if only I had the will and talent to do it! Try to imagine a large group of families, all of them close friends, many with blood ties, going off for an entire season not leaving a single care behind them! (Charette 1976:16)

And then later on, less nostalgically, and more reflectively, Goulet contin­

ues:

W e in the very youngest generation had no idea that this happy existence, full of wide open spaces, with every kind of freedom and no restrictions at all, was passing like childhood, like an adolescence full of beautiful promises, fading away in the space of a night. W e didn't know that the modern civilization we welcomed so eagerly was going to cost us so much, so soon! (Charette 1976:27-28)

Goulet's memoirs recount historical facts that slide into the realm of

idyllic myth. Suddenly, it seems, the wonderful realities of freedom and

space vanish. His days become ambivalent, peppered occasionally with fascination for modern technology, but more consistently now, pained with

the loss of a former way of life. Life tied to the buffalo hunt becomes more tenuous and then dies away as surveyors measure the vast, open prairie

spaces. He reflects on his Metis world paradoxically both closing in around him and receding. Psychologically and physically it is dark. The past and

present are halted; the future is scary and uncanny. Confined to a hospital,

his physical vigor and his faculties waning, unable to see beyond his eyes,

he has to discover the internal spaces of his faith and memories.

Let us savour the nostalgia a little more. Although the quasi-nomadic Metis life appears quite aimless, it has its own regimen tied to the buffalo

hunt. Their societal laws come from nature as the maturity and location

of the buffalo beckon a response. Goulet's happy reply to such beckoning roots him in the earth and nourishes his body and mind. The welcome ties to the buffalo expand his imagination, stimulate his sense of adventure and bind him to his kin. Goulet's freedom appears to be limitless, but it has

a fulfilling structure and intent. He is not a pitiable wayfarer, although his space is often loosely bounded, permitting an exuberant celebration for bounty freely given, gifts spontaneously shared.

2. Dominion of Canada's and Surveyors' Approach to Place

The second approach to place is that of the surveying process. That elusive idea and reality, civilization, frequently centers on various forms of ordering. In western Canada, the expansionists and the Dominion of Canada deemed imperative a universal and systematic ordering process.

METIS A N D S U R V E Y I N G 375

Canadian writer James G. MacGregor captures the marvels of the tech­nical feat of surveying western Canada in Vision of an Ordered Land, The

Story of the Dominion Land Survey. Born in Scotland, homesteading in

western Canada and pursuing the profession of engineering, MacGregor is well qualified to give an appreciative account:

The feat of surveying the fertile lands of the prairie provinces in a checker­board fashion is one of the outstanding accomplishments of the early Cana­dian government. As an example of the extension of a precise and uniform plan of survey over an immense area, no other system in the world equals it. And no other system assembled, trained, and directed such a body of dedicated surveyors.

The first survey of Canada's prairies under the newly devised Domin­ion Lands System got under way in 1869 and within a few decades all their vast arable area had been parceled out into farm-sized quarter sections. The survey rushed forward so rapidly that within ten years some 67,000 such quarter sections had been staked out. During the succeeding ten years the boundaries of a further 382,000 quarters had been defined and by the end of 1919, the end of the first fifty-year period, when most of them had been mea­sured out, the Dominion land surveyors had laid out some 1,110,000 quarter sections which contained a total of 178 million acres. (MacGregor 1981 :ix)

MacGregor's use of the term "feat" is obviously an accolade, the perception of one cultural mindset. The impetus for marvelling is the ordering in such

a precise and expeditious manner. W h a t was perceived as external and

chaotic now becomes close, closed and manageable. W h a t was imprecise

becomes measured and numbered. The surveying process has its own elan on two often intermingled lev­

els. The first level that emerges as quasi-autonomous is the theoretical one during and after the scientific revolution. This approach prizes abstraction,

objectification, quantification and precision. O n the second level, the sur­veying impetus becomes concretized in the writing of surveying handbooks,

in the institution of surveying, and in the new Dominion's response to chal­

lenging demands. Theory becomes practice as Canada acquires land from the Hudson Bay Company, takes stock and responsibly makes plans for it.

Included in Canada's planning is the hiring of "highly trained men" guided

by a seemingly inevitable surveying m o m e n t u m (MacGregor 1981:x). In order to understand the theory and institutional elan of surveying,

let us consider briefly three aspects of this process:

1. history and theory of surveying

2. ideologies of politicians and expansionists

3. existential considerations: surveyors, and the process of surveying

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2.1. History and Theory of Surveying

In general, the surveying system arose as a response to a complex set

of philosophical perspectives, historical circumstances, and technological

advances. In western Canada the system grew out of modern English sur­

veying. Let us begin with the experiential demands of land ownership and

management. To illustrate the difficulty of managing a less than precise

measured area, consider the following description from an old parchment

patent from Ohio dated March 15, 1880:

On the waters of the Rocky Fork of Paint Creek, Beginning at two Sugar Trees and a poplar South seventy Degrees west two hundred and sixty poles from two Beeches, and a black Oak northwesterly corner to Benjamin Wynkoop's survey No. 3019, running North twenty Degrees West one hun­dred poles to a Sugar Tree, white Oak and Beech, thence South seventy Degrees West two hundred and forty-seven poles to three Sugar Trees, thence South twenty Degrees East two hundred and sixty poles crossing a Branch at forty and one and eighty-six poles to three Sassafras, thence North sev­enty Degrees East two hundred and forty-seven poles crossing a Branch at twenty poles to a Sugar Tree and three Beeches, thence North twenty De­grees West one hundred and sixty poles crossing a Branch at sixteen poles to the Beginning. (Spreckley 1969:55)

This unwieldy description for a simple four-sided parcel of 400 acres re­

sulted in more lawsuits in this district than in all of the rest of the State!

European civilization in the later middle ages demanded the clear con­ception and precise determination of boundaries. Modern English land

surveying had its origins in the 16th century, brought about partly by the

phenomenon of enclosing. Put simply, enclosing was the process of combin­ing strips of open fields into larger ones and then enclosing them with fences,

hedges, or other boundaries. Later, meadows, parts of the commons, and

reclaimed lands were also brought into the enclosed system. This process of combining and reorganizing land from an open field into an enclosure

led to many complaints and confusion over titles, rights, and quantities of land involved. Exact measurements, A.W. Richeson (1966:29-30) states, were needed and were developed.

With the need for determining land boundaries precisely came the development of instruments to ensure such accuracy. Coupled with this

penchant for precision arose the perceived need for a departure from the experiential and for devising a means to extend it. The surveying instru­ments, among them Gunter's four-pole chain and the steel band one, served as these standard extensions (MacGregor 1981:73). A sophisticated men­tal determination accompanied the precise instrumental calibration. The

development of very accurate surveying procedures inevitably called for

METIS A N D S U R V E Y I N G 377

creative mathematical calculations. The theory of surveying, then, came

to develop outside the experiential. The practice of surveying took on a theoretical orientation; the calculations were beginning to be made prior

to and independent of the location. As with philosopher Rene Descartes, the accurate, clear and distinct, were viewed as possible only in the mind;

the experiential, the lived, was riddled with complexities, compromises and inaccuracies.

The process of surveying in its more inexact forms arose from a need

to measure part of the life world, the land. Surveying, then, served to

facilitate the good governance and relationships of peoples. Surveying as it developed in its philosophical origins arose as one of the disciplines of

science. As such, surveying began to embody a more detached view of the lived world. As in all science, the conceptual model precedes and often

becomes the norm for the lived. The science of surveying became the

world of idealized shapes and spaces. Such idealizations, phenomenologist Edmund Husserl (1970:22) writes, culminated in univocal perfected forms,

self-enclosed and coherent. These idealized forms, conceived and perfected

outside of the lived reality, became the guide for measuring. What works best in this idealization are geometrically pure shapes, bodies, straight

lines, planes, and figures. The perceived advantage in the scientific theory

of surveying, according to Husserl (1970:27), is that one can posit the world

in its ideality and universality as an objectivity. In its perfection the world

is then the same for all humankind. In addition to giving precision to the world, this conceptual framework also gives access to all humankind of the

world as it is conceived to be. In the modern, scientific approach to surveying, the life-world is a

forgotten basis for meaning. Science merely aspires to know with uncondi­tional certainty the laws of nature, but fumbles to predict its future course. Science can purport to master its subject matter, but the conclusions are

general and often empty of practical meaning. To ensure such a meaning,

the surveying theorist must return to the source of his abstractions, and

find there an original, inherited and often unnoticed meaning, embedded

in simple and non-reflective cultural forms.

2.2. Ideologies of Politicians and Expansionists

We have briefly examined the history and theory of surveying. That theory applied to the land served the ideologies of politicians and expansionists very well. J.S. Dennis (1892:2), Canada's first surveyor general and first

head of the Dominion Lands Branch, judges two decades after the be­ginning of the western surveys that the system was "well adapted to the

country to be surveyed." Obviously this is an approach to the land, water,

non-human and human inhabitants from a rather detached viewpoint. As

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one involved in actual land surveying, however, Dennis has to admit that

practice sometimes differs from theory.

Further development of this theme to include a development of the

actual Canadian political ideology and that of the expansionists is reserved for another expanded paper.

2.3. Existential Considerations:

Surveyors, and the Process of Surveying

W e have examined both the theoretical basis for surveying and its political

endorsement. In fairness to both the theory and practice of surveying, we

must note flexibility on the part of some politicians and surveyors. The Canadian government did not at first insist on the square survey system

along the inhabited rivers in the Northwest Territories, George F.G. Stanley notes (1960:256). Such flexible systemic variants were not always adhered

to, however. As Rev. Valentin Vegreville (1885:1022) pens to the Depart­

ment of the Interior, in St. Laurent and St. Albert the township survey disregarded the curving river, ruthlessly cut through fields, divided houses, and severed farm houses from the fields.

In most instances, the surveying process itself was more important than people. From the standpoint of theoreticians and surveyors the process was

necessary and inevitable. Once set in motion, nothing deterred it. "Politi­cal troubles" and "the outbreak" (the resistance of the Metis) merely forced

the postponement of the surveying in these areas; work, then, continued in the townships exterior to this region. W h a t Dennis (1892:2) describes as

the "disturbed state of affairs" in Manitoba, however, halted the survey­

ing process altogether in 1870. Historical occurrences, injustices, and the

future of present inhabitants delayed and shifted the thrust of the project but did not call for any reconsideration. It seemed incomprehensible that

anyone would object to such a commendable task. Those living in the ter­ritory must not contaminate the ideal, for European settlement and the railway were also being planned.

3. Metis Approach to Place Revisited

The Metis lived in quite another world, so thought many politicians and surveyors. Adventurous and hardy, they adapted well to changing sit­uations, serving as voyageurs, guides, trappers, hunters, freighters, and tripmen, characterizations exclusively of the male gender. Their politi­cal and social structure was egalitarian, generally, with little hierarchy of

METIS A N D SURVEYING 379

command and a perceived lack of restraint. Since they did not ply agricul­

ture with industriousness, they were often regarded as not civilized (Dennis 1892:85-86).

The Metis, however, did not perceive themselves as backward and un­

civilized. In many ways they considered themselves progressive and very adaptive. Unlike aboriginal peoples, they were not ensnared by tradition;

unlike some Europeans they had a great knowledge of nature and exhibited skills in adapting and surviving. Some technological methods, however, did not suit them too well. One of these was the surveying process.

3.1. The Buffalo Hunt

We have already adverted to the uniqueness of the buffalo hunt in the words of Louis Goulet to characterize an important focus and a characteristic

of the Metis way of life. The Metis did not lack industriousness, even though their work emanated less from a sedentary base and was more

sporadic than the Scottish one, for instance. Despite appearances, they

displayed a collective discipline. The hunt served to institute an ordered anarchy, with an ad hoc provisional government; democratic and efficient order prevailed when needed. According to Marcel Giraud (1986:142-143,

150), the provisional government ceased, however, after the completion of the hunt.

The male Metis lifestyle included an alternation of great effort and

idleness, a reciprocal individualism and collective awareness in the hunt, a resistance to the prolonged authority of the leader, and a preference for

general consultation (Giraud 1986:152,196). The Metis liked to prolong the old, free life inherited from their predecessors, the coureurs de bois. This

life provided an abundance of natural things combined with few possessions

and civilized amenities. "The idea of a bank account was as alien to the Metis culture as the idea of a clock," Woodcock writes (1976:44-45). "They lived off the land in the same way as they lived according to the sun and

the seasons." They became accustomed to both high and low moments in

life: austerity and ostentation, feast and famine. The space and place of Metis life was an ambivalent one (Foster 1985:87).

The long, narrow strips helped preserve community life, the basis of Metis

society. The buffalo hunt became an extension of that space, with a view to

a return to the same locale. The disappearance of the buffalo and the ap­

pearance of the township survey process created great feelings of insecurity

for them.

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3.2. Disappearance of the C o m m o n s

Contrary to Surveyor General Dennis's (1892:2) judgment that the survey­

ing system was "well adapted to the country", the Metis considered such

divisions as abnormal and fraught with difficulties. With the disappear­

ance of the commons in western Canada, the Metis felt more and more like Moses and Oedipus Rex, exiled from their native land. With the disappear­

ance of the buffalo came an alienation from ceremonials and a fulfilling way

of life. Not all of the mixed bloods, however, felt the wrenching tensions of

cultural and technical change. Some, like the majority of English of mixed

origins, had established business and political interests (Sprague 1988:326,

36n). Ironically, Gabriel Dumont and other Metis hastened Euro-Canadian

incursions and domination. They helped the fur traders, surveyors and colonists as freighters, guides, ferrymen, trappers, and mediators in treaties.

In this process, however, they aided the advance of a technological world

and paved the way for settlement from the outside. Thus the Metis became

more and more excluded from their own territory both as individuals and as

a people. With their differentiated cultures, the Metis became vulnerable,

a people apart, a people without standing, and often without registered ti­

tle to land. They were overrun by government officials, immigrant settlers, English mixed bloods, and by agents of land speculators.

The problem was and continues to be that of reconciling conflicting cul­tures, of bringing together a small expansive and freedom-loving population with a scientifically sophisticated culture. Prime Minister John A. Macdon-

ald, a Highlander one generation removed, belonged by ancestry to clans

that at Culloden stood in defense of a primitive culture against a complex civilization (Woodcock 1976:127). His ancestral heritage, however, did not sensitize him to a similar situation in western Canada.

Prime Minister MacDonald, his government, and the surveying system

formed an isolated and cozy cocoon. Their visions for the future of the

West abstracted from the cultures already there. Consequently, this so-called Canadian representative democracy mustered reasons for trampling on the cultures of a few without their surrender and without their consent in order to serve the expanding many.

4. Conclusion

The theory of surveying, we have shown, arose in the social and moral world as a response to the need for order. Gradually that theory became divorced from its origins as its scientific formulations became more complex. The system of surveying purported to be neutral, objective, and universal.

METIS A N D S U R V E Y I N G 381

According to Botond Bognar (1985:184, 186), it eliminated from its con­

sideration, however, the symbolic and poetic, celebrations and tragedies,

and a sense of nearness. To a large extent, politicians, surveyors forgot this lived reality. That forgetfulness and its resulting tensions are still with us.

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