Dominion Land Survey - Special Sections

Special Sections

Certain sections of townships were reserved for special purposes:

• As part of the deal that transferred Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada, the HBC retained five per cent of the "fertile belt" (south of the North Saskatchewan and Winnipeg rivers). Therefore Section 8 and three-quarters of Section 26 were assigned to the company. Additionally, the fourth quarter of Section 26 in townships whose numbers were divisible by five also belonged to the HBC in order to give the company exactly five per cent. Although the HBC sold all these sections long ago, they are still often locally called "the Bay section" today.
• The odd-numbered sections (except 11 and 29) were often used for railway land-grants. The Prairies could not be settled without railways, so the Dominion government habitually granted large tracts of land to railway companies as an incentive to build lines. Notably, the Canadian Pacific Railway was granted 25,000,000 acres (100,000 km2) for the construction of its first line from Ontario to the Pacific. These sections are colloquially called CPR sections regardless of the railway they were originally granted to.
• Sections 11 and 29 were school sections. When school boards were formed, they gained title to these sections, which were then sold to fund the initial construction of schools. The rural school buildings were often as not located on school sections; frequently, land trades were made between landowners and the school for practical reasons.
• The remaining quarter sections were available as homesteads under the provisions of the Dominion Lands Act, the federal government's plan for settling the North-West. A homesteader paid a $10 fee for a quarter section of his choice. If after three years he had cultivated 30 acres (12 ha) and had built a house (often just a sod house), he gained title to the quarter. Homesteads were available as late as the 1950s, but the bulk of the settlement of the Prairies was 1885 to 1914.

Legal surveys conducted before and after the Dominion Land Survey grid was laid out often have their own legal descriptions and delineations. Early settlement lots still retain their own original legal descriptions, but often have townships superimposed over them for the sake of convenience or for certain tasks. Urban developments superimpose new survey lots and plans over the older section and township grid also.