alt="Paddling_the_Boreal_Forest_047_001"/>
The silver hockey trophy won by the McGill University team at the 1882 Quebec winter carnival game. A.P. Low's name is inscribed on the cup. Courtesy of McCord Museum, Notman Collection, M976.188.1.
We wonder what his friends called him. Was it Albert or Peter or some variation? In the McGill hockey team photo, he is identified as Albert Low. Nevertheless, all further references are to “A.P.,” including his signature on official Geological Survey correspondence, his field notebooks and news articles. As a confirmation of Mrs. Wynn Turner's family information, oral history records at the Geological Survey always refers to Albert as “A.P.”
JOINING THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
In the summer of 1881, while still at McGill, Low joined a Geological Survey field party as the summer-student assistant to R.W. Ells, to survey the geology of the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec.15 For this job he was paid $30 per month plus board. As an assistant, he did basic mapping which involved pacing distances along roads where they existed, or measuring with optical surveying instruments. Labourers were hired to establish camps, transport supplies and do the camp chores. Low learned to respect their abilities in the bush and on the trail. In the summer of 1882, he again assisted R.W. Ells in continuing the survey of the same area, but this time as a permanent employee of the Geological Survey, starting on July 1,1882, with the salary of $700 per year.
A.P. Low as a young man around the time he joined the Geological Survey of Canada. Courtesy of LAC photo collection, PA-214274, William James Topley.
Low had to move to Ottawa to take up his position at the Geological Survey, which had just completed its relocation from Montreal in 1881. In keeping with his salary and bachelor status, as well as with the general housing shortage in Ottawa at the time, he took rooms in various boarding houses. In 1884, he lodged in Mrs. Buchanan's boarding house on Rideau Street, (still one of Ottawa's main streets) near the Geological Survey headquarters, which was then occupying the Clarendon Hotel on the corner of Sussex Avenue and George Street in the Byward Market. The building still stands but is now home to an exclusive fashion shop and a premium coffee house. Mrs. Buchanan's boarding house could have had the title “Geologist Central” as it also was home to other geologists employed at the Geological Survey, including Joseph Tyrrell (and his brother James who later wrote the classic Across the Sub-Arctics of Canada), Robert G. McConnell (a future Director of the Geological Survey), William Mclnnis and Frank Dawson Adams.16
The Geological Survey of Canada was founded in 1842 by Sir William Logan,17 one of the world's leading scientists and thinkers of his time, and in whose honour Mt. Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, is named. Its mission was to prepare a survey of the geology of the united colony of the Province of Canada. In those pre-confederation times, the Province of Canada (Canada East and Canada West) occupied a narrow strip of land between the U.S. border to the south and the height of land separating the watersheds of rivers flowing north to James and Hudson bays, and rivers flowing south to the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. In 1867, the Confederation of Canada added New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In 1870, the inclusion of Manitoba (at the time a fraction of its current size) and the purchase of the lands from the Hudson's Bay Company added millions of square miles. In 1871, British Columbia and, in 1873, Prince Edward Island became part of Canada. The job of the Geological Survey had become continental in size.
The Geological Survey building for the period 1882 to 1912, on the corner of George and Sussex streets in Ottawa, housed all staff and the museum. The building is still largely unchanged. Courtesy of LAC photo collection, PA-052671, photographer unknown.
When Low joined the Geological Survey in 1882, it had about 50 employees, a number which was more or less constant for the next 20 years. About half were permanent, and the rest part-time. As shown, all of its employees could fit into one photo. The organization operated as a separate unit under the Department of the Interior. Its ability to survey and report on the overall geology of Canada was complicated by the continuous demands by politicians and mining interests to devote more of its resources to work that would have a much more immediate pay-off, such as detailed surveys of promising outcrops for the development of mines. In addition to geology, the Survey also had the mandate to collect and publish observations on forests, Aboriginals, flora and fauna, and accordingly, was called the “Geological and Natural History Survey” until the mid-1880s. In the 1870s and 1880s, it was the main public scientific institution of Canada. When the Royal Society of Canada was established in 1882 to promote scientific exchanges and debates among the small scientific community in Canada, about half the members came from the Geological Survey.
Staff of the Geological Survey of Canada — 1888, photographed by Notman in the Museum, at 546 Sussex, Ottawa.18 For purpose of this book, the following are identified: 1. Sir William Logan; 6. Dr. Alfred R.C Selwyn; 7. George Mercer Dawson; 8. Richard G.McConnell; 9. Dr. J.B Tyrrell; 10. Prof.John Macoun; 15. Dr. Robert Bell; 17. Albert Peter; 18. Dr. Frank Dawson Adams; 19. Dr. R.W. Ells; 34. James M. McEvoy; Courtesy of Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada GSC, photo 97342, Notman Studio.
During Low's career and prior to his directorship, the Geological Survey had three directors with whom Low had a day-to-day relationship. The first was Alfred Selwyn,19 (director from 1869 to 1895). Selwyn oversaw the expansion of the Geological Survey following the death of William Logan, including the hiring of a number of young geologists, such as Low and Tyrrell. When Low had a leadership dispute during Mistassini Expedition of 1884–85, it was Selwyn who backed him up and placed him in charge of the entire expedition. Between 1895 and 1901, the third director of the Geological Survey was George Dawson,20 son of the eminent geologist Sir William Dawson. In spite of a major spinal deformity, George Dawson participated in many expeditions, particularly in the west. His tenure as director was marked by a frozen budget and increasing demands from the mining industry to devote more attention to their interests. It is possible that in 1896 Dawson recommended Low for the Gill Memorial Award from the UK Royal Geographic Society. Following Dawson's sudden death in 1901, Robert Bell21 was made acting director, but never appointed as full director. In 1857, Bell had started part-time for the Geological Survey when he was 15, four years before Low was born. Bell was an influential scientist, and a charter member of the Royal Society of Canada. In spite of their large age difference, he and Low seemed to be on friendly terms — until Low was appointed as director over Bell in 1906.
Between 1882 and 1905, A.P. Low was one of the Geological Survey's foremost travellers, away on a mission every summer for the 24 years during that time. His life as a field geologist followed a seasonal cycle. In the spring, he would receive a written letter of instruction from the director of the Geological Survey, defining the area to be surveyed, the amount budgeted and outlining the objectives and expectations. He would prepare for the coming field season, leaving Ottawa in May or June. At least several weeks at the beginning and the end of each field season was spent simply travelling to and from distant survey areas by train, canoe or sailboat. Following his return in September or October (except for the four winters he spent in the field for the Geological Survey) he would plot his maps and refine his field notes into a report on the summer explorations and an interpretation, in readiness for the minute editing by the director for publication in the Geological Survey's annual report. The work of the winter and early spring would sometimes be relieved by travel to geological conferences in various parts of Canada or the United States, and once, in 1906,22 to Mexico.
Working conditions in the Geological Survey building reflected those of the times.
