1928 Canadian Pacific Pictorial Map of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Arthur Oliver Wheeler (May 1, 1860 - March 20, 1945) was an Irish Canadian surveyor and mountaineer. Born in Lyrath, Ireland, Wheeler attended schools Ballinasloe College in County Galway, Ireland, and Dulwich College in London before moving to Canada in 1876. For the next nine years he worked in midwestern Canada as a surveyor, when, in 1885, he was appointed to the Surveys branch of the Department of the Interior under Dr. Deville. Deville, the originator of Canadian photo-topographical methods, taught Wheeler these methods and how to be a mountain topographer while mapping parts of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Wheeler then elected to start his own surveying firm in 1890, but by 1893 he had returned to the Department of the Interior. Then, starting in 1895, he began working on surveying projects that lasted almost continuously until 1925 and the completion of the Alb3erta-British Columbia provincial boundary survey. During these thirty years, Wheeler worked on projects for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and he took part in surveying the International Boundary between Alaska and the Yukon Territory, then being arbitrated in London. He returned to private practice in 1910, but remained out of government service only until 1913, when he was named Commissioner for British Columbia on the Interprovincial Boundary Survey, mapping and surveying over 600 miles of the main range Rocky Mountains along the Continental Divide. Wheeler helped found the Alpine Clube of Canada (ACC) and the Canadian Alpine Journal. Wheeler served as President of the ACC from 1906 through 1910, and as Managing Director from 1907 until 1930. Wheeler served as Editor of the Journal until 1926. He was Honorary President of the ACC from 1926 until his death. He married Clara Macoun in 1887, who passed away in 1923. He married Emmeline Savatard in 1924. He had one son. More by this mapmaker...