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October 21, 2001
Note: In 2001, several media sources published stories
concerning the location of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. The
following letter to the editor was sent to a number of these media
outlets.
The Alberta-Saskatchewan border is an interesting story. That 110
degrees longitude is not the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary is by no
means a secret – just a situation of not being that well known.
The federal government recognized in 1883 that no one, not even land
surveyors, could precisely determine longitude with the equipment they
had available at the time. It was decided that the meridians should be
established as nearly as possible to 4 degrees in longitude apart. It
was, therefore, not required that the fourth meridian (the
Alberta-Saskatchewan border) should coincide with the line of longitude
of 110 degrees, but only that it should be as close as possible given
the accuracy feasible at the time.
In Australia, their government said that the state of Victoria’s
western boundary was defined by a particular line of longitude.
Unfortunately, the equipment was not accurate enough to determine that
line of longitude in 1847 and it took more than sixty years and a court
case to finally resolve the problem.
The principle of monuments, and not measurements, governing boundary
lines is critical – whether it is national, provincial, or the
boundaries for our own lots. No one wants to have their driveway or
even their house suddenly encroach onto the neighbour’s lot just
because we can measure more accurately today than we could before.
Someday, someone (maybe an Albertan) will create something that is even
better than GPS (the global positioning system) and they will be
wondering why everyone couldn’t have achieved more accurate readings
with GPS.
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