The series consists of original township plans or surveys, subdivision plans, survey diagrams, township registers, and related maps and settlement plans.
Official Township survey plans are the result of official surveys conducted as early as January 1873 and still occur today. In 1871, the first of 3 Dominion Land surveys in the prairie provinces began west of the first meridian in Manitoba, followed by surveys in 1880 and 1881. The surveyors worked on the principles of astronomy and divided the province of Alberta into a grid system composed of ranges, townships, and meridians. Ranges number approximately 1-30 running East to West from each of the three meridians, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth while the townships (1-127) run from North to South from the International Boundary to the Northwest Territories. These plans became official if they were approved and confirmed by the Surveyor General or after 1930 by the Director of Surveys. For each township, it is possible to have numerous editions. It was the policy of the Office of the Surveyor General to create a new edition every time additional survey work was done, corrections made or updates to standard changes adopted. The scale on the maps is described in terms of chains, where 100 links = 1 chain, 1 chain = 66 feet.
Copies of these township plans were then used as a visual indexing tool for creation of homestead leases, dispositions, and other uses of the land. It allowed a government to draw the area of land and identity of the entity who leases, purchases, or otherwise makes use of the land. These were often part of large ledgers or registers that became part of this series.
Canada. Interior. Minister