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Canadian Benchmarks


GOBLUEGIRL

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Mornin' GoBlueGirl,

 

From what I've gathered knocking around this site and reading previous posts, all you could do here would be to WayMark it (or is it WayPoint?). Once upon a time, a Canadian surveyor sent me a link to the Canadian Waymarking site. Let me know if you don't already have that, I'll try to look it up next week when I'm back in the office.

 

Also of interest to some (KayakBird fer instance) are benchmarks set in Canada by the US or in the US by Canada. Have you run across any such marks yerownself? Also, there are a couple of US/ Canada Boundary Commission disks in the Utah desert!!

 

Howz yer weather this week?

 

Cheers,

John

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I took a quick look through Ontario's virtual caches to see if there was an equivalent to Alberta's Brass Cap Cache (there wasn't). This kind of cache is the closest thing to being able to log benchmarks we've got north of the 49th. The CO moves it to a different brass cap every so often, and you can log any of the previous positions as well. Currently there's something in excess of 400 locations spread around the province. Some of them are so remote that they've yet to be visited (like Zama Lake, which requires a float plane to get to!).

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As others have stated, no Canadian Benchmarks loggable on geocaching.com and thus no way to gain icon and associated numbers on Canadian finds. U.S. benchmarks in Canada are also not listed. There is a section for Canadian benchmarks in Waymarking.com but again no numbers to be related to the geocaching.com member profile sections, etc.

 

I've had a fair bit of experience with benchmark hunting in another associated field working with the Canadian Hydrographic Service in the past. Lots of benchmarks throughout the country, not just CHS but other federal, provincial and county agencies as well.

 

Have fun, go hunting, find the benchmarks, but the only credit to be given by geocaching.com will be from the associated U.S. agencies.

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Montana's 'Extreme North" station appears to be in Canada - and I think that there are a bunch more IBC offsets that are in Geocache.

Now that I have a passport, I plan to target a few of them this summer.

TJ0796''ABOUT 3 MILES NORTH OF INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY MONUMENT 515,

TJ0796

 

Didn't see an easy way to edit the above.

 

Snowbound in Lewistown, so I spent a few hours looking for PID's in Canada along the Montana border. Up to 50 + that I have in an Excel file that I would send to anyone interested.

 

I think that I remember noting some of the same north of Minnesota and North Dakota

 

kayakbird

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NORTH OF THE MEDICINE LINE

 

d123ff28-7638-466f-8baa-a31a7271c4b8.jpg

 

PID'd TRI

 

7e7ba823-f108-401c-a567-5e9287a3f0d8.jpg

 

LOOKING FURTHER NORTH

 

Just got back to my Lewistown, Montana base camp after a ten day road trip. Just over 24 hours

were spent searching for International Border Commission offset triangulation marks with PID's

along a sixty mile swath in southern Saskatchewan. It was almost a dry run!

 

Fifteen LAT/LON's were visited at the DDDMMSS.s +/- 15 feet level of accuracy. I do not use a metal detector.

One was found, plus four border station oblisks, two remote border monuments, and two GSC

triangulation stations (one of which had a repaired post - haven't looked for it in their database yet).

 

The one found and five other locations were in undisturbed native prairie - a couple with one or two rock rings, but

shallow probing did not detect the post tops or a soft spot that might lead to a buried station. The rest were in cultivated

fields with no evidence found. Several of these were supposed to have RM's rocks with various chisel marks. From observing

numerous rock piles I don't think that these RM rocks would have been much bigger than a day back pack size.

 

Maybe several of the NOT FOUND's are in fact buried, but were not documented as the one below:

 

TG1936'STATION MARK--A BRONZE DISK MARKED---U.S. AND C.B. SURVEY---SET IN A

TG1936'CONCRETE BLOCK BURIED 20 INCHES IN THE GROUND, WITH A FEW ROCKS

TG1936'PLACED IN THE HOLE BEFORE FILLING WITH EARTH.

 

I get the feeling that these offsets were put in for a one time use - to pin down all the zig & zags

in the actual border monuments and ease of re-occupation in later years was not a factor.

 

I did talk to our Border Patrol sector chief and our Customs agents and the Canadian Customs agent about what I was planning to do. I think

that I had permission to step around to the south side of an oblisk for photo purpses, but I never did. There is supposed to be a "No Man's"

strip of a somewhat undefined width but the fences are of no help. It is best to approach the border from directly north or south and stay

well clear if moving along it.

 

All in all a great trip. DeLorme Topo North America 9.0 was pretty good on showing the driveable roads (their coverage of the legal

roads in the CMR NWR north and south of Fort Peck Reservoir is dismal). Never got turned down when I asked for access (not even at

0700 on a dewy morning when they were likely sleeping in after harvesting until midnight the night before!). One landwoner pointed me

to a GSC TRI and asked that I send the link to their database.

 

I am not planning to log or NGS recovery any of the offsets.

 

kayakbird

 

EDIT 7 SEPT 10: Forgot to mention that three RA's (reference auxiliare) were seen at the TRI stations. All their arrows pointed north; not toward the station. MEL

Edited by kayakbird
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Canadian Stations use in Cross-border Triangulations

 

 

cron,

That's what I've been looking for! I have a few that were set south of the Medicine Line in the early 1920's by the Geodetic Survey of Canada, but so far, they have used a C&GS disk.

kayakbird

 

I've found a couple of GSC reference marks in Maine set for the 1861 station "Trescott Rock" PD0894. This was part of the Eastern Oblique Arc (EOA), a CGS triangulation of the East Coast done in the 19th century.

 

Interestingly, the GSC RMs are flat disks, like the ones used by the CGS pre-1921. Perhaps they are from that same time frame. The datasheet does not document when they were set, but merely that they were there in 1946, the first entry.

 

The 1861 Copper Bolt (see GC log)

fa8b96e8-e875-46c3-8584-39f152eca105.jpg

 

RM 4 set by the GSC

9733ffd1-356e-466c-a34f-185830e4a203.jpg

 

RM 5 set by the GSC

544cd4f3-1c7a-4462-9a52-6dfbcb2767b7.jpg

 

I've also recovered probably a dozen set by the IBC in Canada (and in the NGS database), plus two nice ones NOT set by the IBC - one set by the CGS in New Brunswick as part of the EOA in 1857 "Chamcock" QF0683

 

Chamcock (see GC log)

6d21a4ed-1ae3-4d71-b952-07332ac1b204.jpg

 

And the beautiful 1909 Copper Bolt stamped "GSC 1909" in Quebec about 2-3 miles in from the corner of NH and VT, "Hereford" QH0620.

 

This first order station was used to anchor the west end of the 1915 IBC triangulation of the northeast to the North American Datum. (See GC log)

2e15493c-403e-48ed-8d6b-11501079ed4f.jpg

 

See also my GMap of the 1915 IBC triangulation - NH section. One glance at this map will show the importance of station Hereford.

 

And here's my GMap of the Eastern Terminus of the EOA (in Maine) which shows Trescott Rock and Chamcock. You can see why they needed stations up in Canada.

 

There's plenty out there in the NGS database. Go find 'em!

Edited by Papa-Bear-NYC
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RM 4 set by the GSC

9733ffd1-356e-466c-a34f-185830e4a203.jpg

 

RM 5 set by the GSC

544cd4f3-1c7a-4462-9a52-6dfbcb2767b7.jpg

 

There's plenty out there in the NGS database. Go find 'em!

 

Papa-Bear-NYC,

 

Did your RM's point north - not at the station ? kayakbird

 

from Note 14, this thread

EDIT 7 SEPT 10: Forgot to mention that three RA's (reference auxiliare) were seen at the TRI stations. All their arrows pointed north; not toward the station. MEL

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Papa-Bear-NYC,

 

Did your RM's point north - not at the station ? kayakbird

 

from Note 14, this thread

EDIT 7 SEPT 10: Forgot to mention that three RA's (reference auxiliare) were seen at the TRI stations. All their arrows pointed north; not toward the station. MEL

I believe they pointed at the station, if only because I would have really noticed if they had not.

 

I'd check, but it's a bit off the beaten path so I don't exactly go by there on the way to work. :blink:

 

Rg

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