Prior to this course I have had little to no exposure to reading or interpreting court cases. To many, they form almost a whole separate language along with things like contracts; a language called "legalese" by some. Legalese is to most a foreign tongue, but it in fact forms the underpinning of almost every facet of our society. In the context of land administration and surveying, legalese is the language of choice, and as such it is important to understand.
My reading level is fairly high, and I do tend to have a good comprehension of simple legal speak, but this course was the first in which I have really had to dive into the language with a goal of understanding it more fully. This course has touched on two major forms of legal documents: deeds - a form of legal contract - and court cases. Both types of legal documents are very relevant to the profession of surveying, and have a direct bearing on how any situation that might arise is handled.
Another dimension which adds to the difficulty of comprehension of these types of documents in particular is the continuing relevance and reference to historical documents. The added difficulty arises from both differences in syntax and grammar as well as the sometimes handwritten nature of the documents themselves through the centuries.
Having full comprehension of these documents, and understanding what the intent the writer was trying to convey is key to the successful completion of surveying and land management goals. One must be prepared to interpret not just what the words on the page are, but what they mean in the differing historical contexts in which they were written, and how that translates through the years to today.
During this course we have had the opportunity to explore both deeds and court cases from various time periods. I think that this is an extremely valuable skill to learn in the land surveying profession. The case review assignment was a fascinating look into the process how the Canadian legal system works, and the simple title search we conducted brought to light some of the many challenges surveyors face.
Both of these assignments also raised something interesting about the profession that I think I knew existed, and that in fact I quite welcome, but that might come as a surprise to many others in this course. That is the intersection of the hard science of survey engineering with the art of history and archiving, and the interpretation of law.
Elsewhere in engineering and indeed in other aspects of the discipline of surveying itself there are clear cut right and wrong answers which are quantifiable based on physical or mathematical tests. Land administration is different. While in many cases it is evident which way of proceeding appears most correct based on a clearly defined set of facts, in many other cases the way forward is much less clear and multiple paths can be argued as correct.
The chains of evidence are long and winding, and may proceed through centuries of records, and may be governed by precedence in chains of court cases meandering through various branches of courts on both sides of the Atlantic back through history. The people involved in the decisions these records document are long gone, and it is up to the surveyor to impartially interpret them as best as possible.
This interpretation can and does have significant bearing on the lives of people as a surveyors opinion on locations of boundaries is often the deciding factor in any type of dispute. While surveyors are not the final decision makers in a boundary case, their opinions are highly regarded by the courts as expert witnesses. As such they must have strong skills in gathering and understanding evidence, be that historical documentation, oral testimony from relevant parties, physical evidence on the ground, and any number of other types.
The point I am getting at is that many coming into this part of our schooling may have to date only dealt with problems that have a verifiable answer. That is an important part of this profession, but all of that sits on the foundation of interpretation and evaluation of often disparate and contradictory evidence from several centuries of our predecessors. Almost anything a modern surveyor does draws its legitimacy from an understanding of precedence and the intent of those that have come before, and that understanding comes from being fluent in the language of the law.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Lands Divided
Over its history Canada has had many different ways of dividing land when initially settled. These patterns arose from cultural practices of the time, as well as more practical considerations such as surveying technology and ease of defense. As settlement progressed, new settlement patterns changed, but there remains clear evidence of the older patterns of settlement even today. The original parcels may not exist and may have been subdivided or amalgamated, but their original shapes can bee seen in aerial photos from today.
This is an example from the north shore of the St Lawrence River of one of the earliest settlement patterns in what is now Canada. The seigneurial system was the original form of settlement for much of New France and had a whole set of prescriptions for land division through generations, creating the very thin parcels visible running away from the river in the above image.
On the coast of Nova Scotia, and in New Brunswick, the township system originated with British settlement and featured rectilinear blocks overlaid on the terrain. These settlements typically would have a fort on each side of the township and an agricultural commons just outside.
Ontario featured several township systems over time. This region shows an area using the "double-front" system of 100 acre lots with one face to a road, and backing onto another lot. This particular system was used in the early 1800s
Perhaps the most visually striking system is the Dominion Land Survey system spanning much of the central prairies of Canada. One can clearly see the hierarchy of square blocks the land was divided into and even the multitude of ways of subdividing those parcels.
With it's rugged terrain and limited areas of flat ground, BC had many different ways of arranging original settlement patterns, but here on the flat ground of the Lower Mainland where Vancouver is situated one can see a large area of regular lots created with the range section and block system. It has been further subdivided into smaller fields, or massively subdivided further into residential lots.
Across Canada, most urban areas now use a block and lot system, dividing blocks into lots which can be regular or irregular, both of which are seen in this image. This system is not so much an original settlement system, as it usually occurs with the subdivision of older parcels existing in one of the above systems.
With its very different land use activities, Newfoundland had an irregular system whereby parcels were simply created by occupying the land with no systematic reasoning or connection to a wider system. This has caused great difficulty in subsequent years.
This is the aboriginal community Lombadina/Djarindjin on the west coast of Western Australia's Dampier Peninsula. If one looks closely at the community it is settled in a block and lot system with streets winding through. It was established by the government in a systematic way to resettle aboriginal people into one centralized location. While the settlement itself is quite densely populated, it has a very small population and is in a very remote region with little access and very few other communities. One can see the airport which is the only commercial activity the community participates in, refueling helicopters flying from Broome to offshore LNG platforms. The rest of the community is involved in subsistence fishing and hunting, and limited tourism activities. In the context of our western thinking of land use and population density, this is an appropriate settlement pattern, however in the context of the aboriginal people of Australia, this is an extremely new phenomenon and does not fit their land use practices. The community was previously mobile in their large country surrounding the modern community.
This is an example from the north shore of the St Lawrence River of one of the earliest settlement patterns in what is now Canada. The seigneurial system was the original form of settlement for much of New France and had a whole set of prescriptions for land division through generations, creating the very thin parcels visible running away from the river in the above image.
On the coast of Nova Scotia, and in New Brunswick, the township system originated with British settlement and featured rectilinear blocks overlaid on the terrain. These settlements typically would have a fort on each side of the township and an agricultural commons just outside.
Ontario featured several township systems over time. This region shows an area using the "double-front" system of 100 acre lots with one face to a road, and backing onto another lot. This particular system was used in the early 1800s
Perhaps the most visually striking system is the Dominion Land Survey system spanning much of the central prairies of Canada. One can clearly see the hierarchy of square blocks the land was divided into and even the multitude of ways of subdividing those parcels.
With it's rugged terrain and limited areas of flat ground, BC had many different ways of arranging original settlement patterns, but here on the flat ground of the Lower Mainland where Vancouver is situated one can see a large area of regular lots created with the range section and block system. It has been further subdivided into smaller fields, or massively subdivided further into residential lots.
Across Canada, most urban areas now use a block and lot system, dividing blocks into lots which can be regular or irregular, both of which are seen in this image. This system is not so much an original settlement system, as it usually occurs with the subdivision of older parcels existing in one of the above systems.
With its very different land use activities, Newfoundland had an irregular system whereby parcels were simply created by occupying the land with no systematic reasoning or connection to a wider system. This has caused great difficulty in subsequent years.
This is the aboriginal community Lombadina/Djarindjin on the west coast of Western Australia's Dampier Peninsula. If one looks closely at the community it is settled in a block and lot system with streets winding through. It was established by the government in a systematic way to resettle aboriginal people into one centralized location. While the settlement itself is quite densely populated, it has a very small population and is in a very remote region with little access and very few other communities. One can see the airport which is the only commercial activity the community participates in, refueling helicopters flying from Broome to offshore LNG platforms. The rest of the community is involved in subsistence fishing and hunting, and limited tourism activities. In the context of our western thinking of land use and population density, this is an appropriate settlement pattern, however in the context of the aboriginal people of Australia, this is an extremely new phenomenon and does not fit their land use practices. The community was previously mobile in their large country surrounding the modern community.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Parcel Mapped
The above plot shows the lot selected in the inset and the original crown grant it is part of in the main section of the map along with the parcel's location within the crown grant. This was my first time using CAD and it was a significant learning curve. I did not get it quite like I wanted it, however I feel that most of the pertinent information is presented in at least a somewhat coherent way.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Hunting Parcels
The first parcel I looked at is the property my apartment building is on. That was not particularly interesting as it has been registered to the current owner since 1969, so I chose a plot in a subdivision up the river a ways at random and worked with that.
The property I chose has a PID of 01510387 . The property is located on Monteith Drive off of Woodstock road. The current owners of the parcel are Etienne Jacques Dupuis and Josianne Melida Charest. They purchased the property on the 24th of July, 2008 from Nicole Line Bourgeois and Jean Paul Robert Robichaud. They had purchased the property six years earlier on the 26th of September 2002 from John Walter Thompson and Florence Elizabeth Thompson. The Thompsons had held the property since 1992. The parcel sits on land originally granted by the crown to George Cyphers on the 3rd of October 1799.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Up in the Air
I find boundaries in general to be quite interesting. One type of boundary we have talked about recently that I find particularly interesting are those enclosing Air Space Parcels. While they are not common in places like New Brunswick, they are used heavily in some parts of the country, particularly in cities like Vancouver with significant numbers of tall buildings.
The idea of demarcating a boundary on the ground is a pretty simple one which is easily understood my most if not all. One can place markers on the ground and easily see precisely where the boundary is at all times and how structures relate to those boundaries. In the case of the land moving locally due to settling or other, markers move with the land and the boundaries persist in the same relationship to structures on the land as they are defined by the monuments in many cases.
An airspace parcel on the other hand is different. It is referenced to 3D geodetic coordinates meaning several things. First of all, there can not be markers placed at the corners of the parcel as it is just a point in the air. This makes it much more difficult to ascertain where they are. They can also have complex three dimensional shapes, making it even more difficult. Also, given they are referenced to geodetic coordinates rather than to ground monuments, if the ground moves locally, it moves with respect to the geodetic coordinates.
In the case where an airspace parcel contains a floor of a building this can be problematic as parts of the floor can become outside the airspace parcel quite quickly, and for everything to be neat and tidy legally, one must redefine the boundaries of the parcel.
In thinking about this, something we are expecting any day now on the West Coast is "The Big One". This would be an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or up which is long overdue given historical evidence. Given the use of airspace parcels, and the fact that land can shift horizontally and vertically by meters in an instant in a large earthquake, Vancouver surveyors will likely be very busy following "The Big One" resurveying airspace parcels.
On a different note, but somewhat similar, I am very curious to see what happens with the land rights of the people displaced by the long lasting eruption on Hawaii last year. Hundreds of properties were completely obliterated and covered with many meters of fresh lava flows. I am very curious to see what happens to those properties as it is highly unlikely they will now be suitable to build on.
The idea of demarcating a boundary on the ground is a pretty simple one which is easily understood my most if not all. One can place markers on the ground and easily see precisely where the boundary is at all times and how structures relate to those boundaries. In the case of the land moving locally due to settling or other, markers move with the land and the boundaries persist in the same relationship to structures on the land as they are defined by the monuments in many cases.
An airspace parcel on the other hand is different. It is referenced to 3D geodetic coordinates meaning several things. First of all, there can not be markers placed at the corners of the parcel as it is just a point in the air. This makes it much more difficult to ascertain where they are. They can also have complex three dimensional shapes, making it even more difficult. Also, given they are referenced to geodetic coordinates rather than to ground monuments, if the ground moves locally, it moves with respect to the geodetic coordinates.
In the case where an airspace parcel contains a floor of a building this can be problematic as parts of the floor can become outside the airspace parcel quite quickly, and for everything to be neat and tidy legally, one must redefine the boundaries of the parcel.
In thinking about this, something we are expecting any day now on the West Coast is "The Big One". This would be an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or up which is long overdue given historical evidence. Given the use of airspace parcels, and the fact that land can shift horizontally and vertically by meters in an instant in a large earthquake, Vancouver surveyors will likely be very busy following "The Big One" resurveying airspace parcels.
On a different note, but somewhat similar, I am very curious to see what happens with the land rights of the people displaced by the long lasting eruption on Hawaii last year. Hundreds of properties were completely obliterated and covered with many meters of fresh lava flows. I am very curious to see what happens to those properties as it is highly unlikely they will now be suitable to build on.
Heartstrings, Metes, and Bounds
This is an advertisement that clearly uses pathos as a method of persuasion. Pulling on our heartstrings with a baby is almost always an example of pathos. The large text is definitely pathos. The small text is more of a logical appeal however. It talks about the construction of the tires and talks about how although their tires are more expensive to buy, they last longer and are cheaper to own. There is also an appeal to ethos in the first part of the small text. They talk about how tires are their only focus, and they use only the best materials and only release them after huge amounts of testing. All that said, the main appeal is that of pathos.
Lutz v. Kawa (1980) 15 R.P.R. 40 This case is important because of the views it sets out on adverse possession, and on when the period of limitations starts outside of the condition of outright sale. It contradicts several previous cases slightly which upon review of previous precedent appear to not have followed that precedent.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being in the Township of Hawkesbury, County of Prescott in the Province of Ontario, being more particularly described as follows:
Beginning at the center of the one inch square iron bar lying in a southwesterly direction along the bearing S16°51'30"W a distance of 13.06 feet from the road allowance between concessions 6 and 7 near the telephone pole with a guy wire; Thence in a northwesterly direction along the bearing N67°29'30"W a distance of 199.00 feet to the center of the 5/8 inch square iron bar; Thence continuing in a southwesterly direction along the bearing S16°51'30"W a distance of 220.00 feet to the center of the 5/8 inch square iron bar; Thence in a southeasterly direction along the bearing S67°29'30"E a distance of 209.00 feet to the center of the 5/8 inch square iron bar on the boundary with Lot 25; Thence following the post and wire fence along the boundary with Lot 25 in a northeasterly direction along the bearing N16°51'30"E a distance of 220.00 feet to an unmarked point along the boundary with Lot 25; Thence in a northwesterly direction along the bearing N67°29'30"W a distance of 10.00 feet to the place of beginning.
The herein-before described parcel of land contains 1.010 acres more or less and is designated as Part 1 of Lot 26 of Concession 7, and is shown as described on filed plan number 46R-5593.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Research Sources Research
How can Precise Point Positioning be used to improve accuracy of a Global Navigation Satellite System survey using a single receiver. There are many ways to answer that question and many levels of detail, depth and accuracy different sources can provide. Below are an assessment of three sources of different types which could be used to start to answer that question. All citations should have the second and subsequent lines indented but I cannot seem to make Blogger do that.
1. Novatel. (2015). Precise Point Positioning (PPP). Retrieved February 06, 2019, from https://www.novatel.com/an-introduction-to-gnss/chapter-5-resolving-errors/precise-point-positioning-ppp/
This resource is a website produced by a producer of GNSS products. It is designed as an introductory and explanatory document to help potential users understand more about they technology they produce. It does not have an author cited and does not include references. This means one must take them at their word for anything discussed on the page. It does include a year of publication in this case from a parent directory, however it difficult to ascertain if that is the last time this page was edited. There is likely some bias built into the information provided as it is compiled by a corporation with a financial interest in the use of the information.
2. Lou, Y., Zheng, F., Gu, S., Wang, C., Guo, H., & Feng, Y. (2015). Multi-GNSS precise point positioning with raw single-frequency and dual-frequency measurement models. GPS Solutions, 20(4), 849-862. doi:10.1007/s10291-015-0495-8
This resource is a web accessed journal article published in GPS Solutions, also in 2015. The authors come from two organizations: the GNSS Research Center of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and the Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. It contains many references to other articles from within just a couple of years before its publication which lends credence to it being up to date. It is quite specific which could mean that it does not have a broad application to answering my question, however it could be a great resource for a specific part of my question.
3. Kaplan, E. D., & Hegarty, C. (2017). Understanding GPS/GNSS: Principles and Applications (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Artech House.
This resource is a book accessed online. It was published in 2017 so is the most recent of the three sources, but it is the third edition so it would be difficult to tell when precisely any part of the book was added. There are just two authors, but they cite a long list of contributors from a large variety of organizations around the world. The book covers all of the principles and science of GNSS including an entire chapter just on PPP and has references from many sources all through it giving it additional weight.
1. Novatel. (2015). Precise Point Positioning (PPP). Retrieved February 06, 2019, from https://www.novatel.com/an-introduction-to-gnss/chapter-5-resolving-errors/precise-point-positioning-ppp/
This resource is a website produced by a producer of GNSS products. It is designed as an introductory and explanatory document to help potential users understand more about they technology they produce. It does not have an author cited and does not include references. This means one must take them at their word for anything discussed on the page. It does include a year of publication in this case from a parent directory, however it difficult to ascertain if that is the last time this page was edited. There is likely some bias built into the information provided as it is compiled by a corporation with a financial interest in the use of the information.
2. Lou, Y., Zheng, F., Gu, S., Wang, C., Guo, H., & Feng, Y. (2015). Multi-GNSS precise point positioning with raw single-frequency and dual-frequency measurement models. GPS Solutions, 20(4), 849-862. doi:10.1007/s10291-015-0495-8
This resource is a web accessed journal article published in GPS Solutions, also in 2015. The authors come from two organizations: the GNSS Research Center of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and the Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. It contains many references to other articles from within just a couple of years before its publication which lends credence to it being up to date. It is quite specific which could mean that it does not have a broad application to answering my question, however it could be a great resource for a specific part of my question.
3. Kaplan, E. D., & Hegarty, C. (2017). Understanding GPS/GNSS: Principles and Applications (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Artech House.
This resource is a book accessed online. It was published in 2017 so is the most recent of the three sources, but it is the third edition so it would be difficult to tell when precisely any part of the book was added. There are just two authors, but they cite a long list of contributors from a large variety of organizations around the world. The book covers all of the principles and science of GNSS including an entire chapter just on PPP and has references from many sources all through it giving it additional weight.
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