Surveying Southern British Columbia
Frank Swannell running the theodolite, BC Southern Rail-way land grants survey, 1902. The pistol and ammunition were used to shoot small game. Photo: Royal BC Museum.
Letters to Ada ...
From 1901 to their marriage in 1904, Swannell courted Ada Driver. His letters provide detailed insights into the life of surveyors working in a challenging environment with limited resources.
We had just packed in to Sage creek when we were burnt right out by a forest fire. Lost tents, blankets, grub, pack saddles. Escaped with what we happened to be wearing... We froze that night around a fire in a wet spruce bottom.
Before he began surveying for the British Columbia government, Frank Swannell worked from 1901 to 1907 for Gore & McGregor, one of the leading surveying firms in the province. During that time Swannell surveyed throughout southern BC, from the west coast of Vancouver Island to the Rockies, and from the US border north to Quesnel in the Cariboo and to Ocean Falls on the Coast.
Swannell bought a camera in 1901 and used it to document the surveying he completed, the people he met, and the places he visited. He worked on many projects that were important in BC history and his photographs provide an important record of these events.
Setting out boundary markers for First Nations reserves, Highland Valley, 1907. Photo: Royal BC Museum.
A Photojournal of Frank Swannell, 1901-1907
Plenty of venison, Kishinena Creek, 1904. Photo: Royal BC Museum.
Photo Gallery
Our cook is a jewel, a most inventive genius with a penchant for weird culinary concoctions...I give his latest evolved recipe. Cake a la Survey: Musty flour - a sufficiency. Baking powder: a fistful. Raisins galore. Marmalade - as much as will stick to a clasp knife blade; syrup (with sandflies therein) - considerable. Tin cow - half tin cupful. Water: ad libitum. Place before a reflector with lots of fir bark on fire. Test for doneness with a hemlock sliver.
Swannell spent much time during these years on railroad surveys, particularly on land grants for the CPR rail lines through the Kootenay and Boundary regions. Surveying Southern British Columbia provides insights into this significant and controversial part of BC's railroad history, and Swannell's photographs document the difficult work of surveying the lots through rugged terrain.
British Columbia was a vastly different province at the beginning of the 20th century. Swannell worked on the Pacific Cable survey project to bring around-the-world cable service to the British Empire; he was involved in the search for oil in BC coinciding with the birth of the auto industry; and he surveyed some of the initial leases for BC's first pulp and paper mills.
Swannell and crew portaging boat on King Island during the pulp and paper lease surveys for the Ocean Falls plant, 1906. Photo: Royal BC Museum.