Arthur Oliver Wheeler - Career

Career

In 1883, Wheeler was employed by the Canadian Government on pioneer surveys in the Northwest Territories, which then included the future provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and parts of what are now Manitoba. In 1884 he sub-divided a number of Canadian Pacific Railway townsites along the line of railway construction. In 1885 he was appointed a technical officer of the Topographical Surveys Branch of the Department of the Interior in 1885 under Dr. Edouard Deville, Surveyor General of Canada, where he was trained in the specialty of photo-topographical surveying then being applied by Dr. Deville to the mapping of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

In 1885 the North-West Rebellion was begun by Louis Riel, which pitted the Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada. Wheeler joined the Canadian militia as a lieutenant with the Dominion Land Surveyors Intelligence Corps under Captain J. S. Dennis and, with a group of other land surveyors, marched to help quell the rebellion. At the Battle of Batoche, one surveyor was killed and three others wounded. Wheeler was grazed in the shoulder by a sniper's bullet, but a few days later learned that his family in Ontario had been informed that he had been killed in action. After returning to Ottawa, Wheeler met Clara Macoun, daughter of famous Canadian botanist John Macoun who had made numerous trips to the northwest to survey the railway and evaluate the land for farming. Arthur married Clara in Ottawa in 1888.

In 1891, Arthur, Clara, and their new son Edward Oliver Wheeler headed west to New Westminster, British Columbia where Wheeler went into private practice as a surveyor. His private surveying work was supplemented by work for the Department of the Interior, and he was joined in his surveying business by his younger brothers Hector and Willie. A real estate crash nearly wiped them out, and in 1894 he rejoined the Topographical Survey Branch of the Department of the Interior. Wheeler spent six years surveying the area south of Calgary, Alberta and in 1898 moved his wife and son to Calgary. During this period he surveyed the watersheds of the Elbow, Sheep, Highwood, Oldman, Belly, Waterton, Little Bow, St. Mary and Milk Rivers. In 1900, the Department of the Interior announced it was going to close its office in Calgary, so Wheeler spent the summer surveying the Crowsnest Pass area in Alberta, and in 1901 the Wheelers returned to Ottawa.

In 1901, the Surveyor-General of Canada, Dr. Edouard Deville, assigned Wheeler the task of surveying the Rogers Pass area of the Selkirk Range in British Columbia. On the train to Rogers Pass, Wheeler met Edward Whymper, who had made the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 and who was in Canada as a guest of the Canadian Pacific Railway. At Rogers Pass, Wheeler met a group of professional Swiss mountain guides in the employ of the railway, and it was with six of them that he made his first ascent of a major peak. He continued to climb mountains in the area, and in 1902 took his son Oliver on a first ascent of a previously unnamed peak, which he named Mount Oliver after his son. Wheeler also made a first ascent of a major peak, which he named Mount Wheeler after himself. In 1903, Wheeler was assigned the survey of the railway belt through the Canadian Rockies east of Rogers Pass. During the following two years, he met numerous American and British climbers who were making first ascents among the vast ranges of unclimbed peaks in the Canadian west.

In 1904, Wheeler attended the International Geographic Congress, convened at Washington, as delegate from the Department of the Interior, and, while it was in session, visited Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and the St. Louis World’s Fair. In 1905 he was invited to speak at a meeting of the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston. Later that year, he published a book called The Selkirk Range, the first book written by a Canadian to celebrate a mountain range.

Wheeler returned to private practice from 1910 to 1913, and then was appointed Commissioner of the Alberta / British Columbia boundary survey. From 1913 to 1925 he was responsible for surveying the portion of the boundary which follows the Continental Divide from the United States Boundary at the 49th parallel to its intersection with the 120th meridian, a distance of 600 miles (970 km). During this assignment Wheeler named many of the peaks in the Kananaskis area of Alberta after World War I British and French generals, admirals and battleships. At its close, Wheeler retired from active professional work.