Walter Moberly (engineer) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Walter Moberly was a civil engineer

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

and surveyor

Surveying

See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...

who played a large role in the early exploration

Exploration

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...

and development of British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, including discovering Eagle Pass, now used by the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

and the Trans-Canada Highway

Trans-Canada Highway

The Trans-Canada Highway is a federal-provincial highway system that joins the ten provinces of Canada. It is, along with the Trans-Siberian Highway and Australia's Highway 1, one of the world's longest national highways, with the main route spanning 8,030 km...

.

He was born in Steeple Aston

Steeple Aston

Steeple Aston is a village and civil parish on the edge of the Cherwell Valley in Oxfordshire, England, about west of Bicester and south of Banbury...

, Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

in 1832. In 1834 Walter moved with his family to Penetanguishene, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, where his father, Capt. John Moberly, R. N. was appointed Post Commander. Walter received his primary education at the Base and later went to grammar school in Barrie

Barrie

Barrie may refer to:* Barrie, city in Ontario, Canada* Barrie , Canadian federal electoral district* Barrie , provincial electoral district* Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, former Canadian electoral district...

. During the construction of the railway to Collingwood, Walter worked clearing bush and following that, chose a career of Lumberman, with timber holdings in Essa and Tossorontio, near Angus, and on the Severn River, in Muskoka. Most of his survey work was in British Columbia, and Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

.

His first survey work was laying out the streets for the community of New Westminster

New Westminster, British Columbia

New Westminster is an historically important city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and is a member municipality of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. It was founded as the capital of the Colony of British Columbia ....

, now a suburb of Vancouver. Between 1861 and 1864 he worked on several government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

road

Road

A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...

building contracts. With Edgar Dewdney

Edgar Dewdney

Edgar Dewdney, PC was a Canadian politician born in Devonshire, England. He served as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories and the fifth Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.-Early life and career:...

, Moberly helped construct the Dewdney Trail across the Coast Range

Coast Mountains

The Coast Mountains are a major mountain range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges, of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia. They are so-named because of their proximity to the sea coast, and are often...

from the town of Hope

Hope, British Columbia

Hope is a district municipality located at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end of the Fraser Canyon...

into the Okanagan

Okanagan

The Okanagan , also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as Okanagan Country is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. As of 2009, the region's population is approximately 350,927. The...

. Also under contract from the government, Moberly was involved in building a section of the Cariboo Road north of Lytton in the Fraser River

Fraser River

The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...

canyon

Canyon

A canyon or gorge is a deep ravine between cliffs often carved from the landscape by a river. Rivers have a natural tendency to reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water it will eventually drain into. This forms a canyon. Most canyons were formed by a process of...

. This road was built to provide access to the gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

fields in the Cariboo

Cariboo

The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia along a plateau stretching from the Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the woodland caribou that were once abundant in the region...

.

In 1865, he was appointed Assistant Surveyor General of the Colony of British Columbia

Colony of British Columbia

The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still largely...

. His job was to explore new routes for travel and trade for the growing population of the territory. It was during this time that he discovered Eagle Pass through the Gold Range between Shuswap Lake

Shuswap Lake

Shuswap Lake is a lake located in south-central British Columbia, Canada that drains via the Little River into Little Shuswap Lake. Little Shuswap Lake is the source of the South Thompson River, a branch of the Thompson River, a tributary of the Fraser River...

in the north Okanagan and the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

at what is now Revelstoke

Revelstoke, British Columbia

Revelstoke is a city in southeastern British Columbia, Canada. It is located east of Vancouver, and west of Calgary, Alberta. The city is situated on the banks of the Columbia River just south of the Revelstoke Dam and near its confluence with the Illecillewaet River...

. The story is that he shot at an eagle

Eagle

Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...

's nest and watched the birds fly up a valley. Reasoning that the birds were unlikely to fly up a blocked valley, he followed them up and discovered the pass. In his recollections, he says he blazed a tree in the pass and inscribed the words, "This is the Pass of the Overland Railway." The Canadian Pacific Railway did go through his pass but not for another 20 years.

After 1865, he left the province and worked in the mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

fields of Utah

Utah

.

In 1871, when British Columbia was about to enter Confederation with Canada

Canadian Confederation

Canadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. On that day, three British colonies were formed into four Canadian provinces...

, one of the terms was a promise by Canada to build a railway across the continent. Moberly was sought out by Joseph Trutch

Joseph Trutch

Sir Joseph William Trutch, KCMG was an English-born Canadian engineer, surveyor and politician.-Early life and career:...

, British Columbia's first provincial Lieutenant-Governor, and invited back to organize surveys for the railway. His survey crews headed out into the wilderness

Wilderness

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

on the day the province joined confederation. Moberly's survey crews were responsible for the territory around what is now Eagle Pass, Revelstoke, and Golden

Golden, British Columbia

Golden is a town in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, located west of Calgary, Alberta and east of Vancouver.-History:Much of the town's history is tied into the Canadian Pacific Railway and the logging industry...

. From the time of his discovery of Eagle Pass, he formed the conviction that this was the best route for the railway. However, Sandford Fleming

Sandford Fleming

Sir Sandford Fleming, was a Scottish-born Canadian engineer and inventor, proposed worldwide standard time zones, designed Canada's first postage stamp, a huge body of surveying and map making, engineering much of the Intercolonial Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was a founding...

, Chief Engineer of the railway project, asked Moberly to relocate his crews north to the Yellowhead Pass

Yellowhead Pass

The Yellowhead Pass is a mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies. It is located on the border between the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, and lies within Jasper National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park....

for the 1872 season. Moberly was very frustrated with these orders requiring him to abandon his preferred route.

After the 1873 survey season, Moberly left the Canadian Pacific Survey

Canadian Pacific Survey

The Canadian Pacific Survey or Canadian Pacific Railway Survey consisted of a large number of distinct geographical surveys conducted during the 1870s and 1880s designed to determine the ideal route of the Canadian Pacific Railway...

and moved to Manitoba. He continued to do private survey work there.

Moberly was very bitter towards Major

Major

Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

A.B. Rogers, who was credited with discovering the Rogers Pass

Rogers Pass

Rogers Pass is a high mountain pass through the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia used by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Trans-Canada Highway. The pass is a shortcut across the "Big Bend" of the Columbia River from Revelstoke on the west to Donald, near Golden, on the east...

through the Selkirk Mountains

Selkirk Mountains

The Selkirk Mountains are a mountain range spanning the northern portion of the Idaho Panhandle, eastern Washington, and southeastern British Columbia. They begin at Mica Peak near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and extend approximately 320 km north from the border. The range is bounded on its west,...

in 1881. Moberly argued that while discovering Eagle Pass, he had explored the Illecillewaet River

Illecillewaet River

The Illecillewaet River is a tributary of the Columbia River located in British Columbia, Canada. Fed by the Illecillewaet Glacier in Glacier National Park, the river flows approximately to the southwest, where it flows into the north end of Upper Arrow Lake at Revelstoke...

and that his journals aided Rogers in his exploration of the pass.

Because of his early explorations and visionary — some say wishful — ideas on the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway, he has a prominent spot in Canadian Pacific Railway lore. Placement of the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway took place in Eagle Pass at Craigellachie, British Columbia

Craigellachie, British Columbia

Craigellachie is a locality in British Columbia, located several kilometres to the west of the Eagle Pass summit between Sicamous and Revelstoke...

.

Moberly Lake

Moberly Lake (British Columbia)

Moberly Lake along British Columbia Highway 29 in northern British Columbia, Canada, is named for Henry John Moberly, a fur trader that lived on the lake. It is served by the Chetwynd Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment.-External links:*...

in northern British Columbia is named for Walter's younger brother Henry John Moberly

Henry John Moberly

Henry John Moberly, also known as Harry or Harvey was a fur trader. He entered the Hudson's Bay Company's service in 1854, and in 1862 was in charge of the post on Stuart Lake; gave his name to Moberly Lake in the Peace River country. After nearly 40 years service, retired in Saskatchewan, in...

, a fur trader that lived on that lake. It is thought that Walter was lured to the West, following a brief visit by Henry, to the family home at Penetanguishene, Ontario

Ontario

. From Ontario, Walter sailed via Cape Horn, to reach British Columbia.

He published several books including his autobiographic book, The Rocks and Rivers of British Columbia (H. Blacklock & Co, London, 1885).

See also