Frank Swannell

Frank Cyril Swannell (May 16, 1880 in Hamilton, Ontario - 1969 in Victoria) was one of British Columbia's most famous surveyors.

He came to British Columbia during the era of the Klondike Gold Rush and became a surveyor's assistant. Then, from 1908, he was a professional surveyor and surveyed many regions of British Columbia. He kept a journal of his work and collected over 5000 unique pictures of the era, which were donated to BC Archives for the benefit of future researchers. The photographs span a period of more than 40 years and cover many areas of the province. Their subjects include stagecoaches, sternwheelers, old forts and remote villages, mountains and rivers, pioneer settlers, miners and First Nations people. Swannell's pictures are a priceless contribution to the history of British Columbia.

Swannell graduated from high school in Toronto and then attended a two-year program in mining engineering at the University of Toronto from 1897-1899. In the summer of 1898, he worked for a surveying firm in New Denver, British Columbia. After he graduated, he intended to travel to the Yukon to participate in the Klondike Gold Rush, but instead obtained work with the Victoria surveyors, Gore and McGregor, receiving his Provincial Land Surveying licence and Dominion Land Surveying licence in 1903 and 1904 respectively. In 1908, Swannell left the firm and struck out on his own and sooned gained a reputation for being among the best in the business.

The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway caused a great deal of interest in Central and Northern British Columbia, and settlers were arriving looking for agricultural land, which needed to be surveyed before it could be sold or pre-empted. The equipment the surveyors used would be considered simple by today's standards, but it was remarkably accurate: a transit and a 66-foot length of chain (80 lengths to a mile). The pioneer surveyors did more than survey land, they also recorded the topography, soil conditions and potential uses of the land, information that was a necessity for the government and land-seekers alike.

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