Arthur Oliver Wheeler

Arthur Oliver Wheeler (May 1, 1860 – May 20, 1945) was born in Ireland and immigrated to Canada in 1876 at the age of 16. He became a land surveyor and surveyed large areas of western Canada, including photo-topographical surveys of the Selkirk Mountains and the British Columbia-Alberta boundary along the continental divide through the Canadian Rockies. In 1906, he and journalist Elizabeth Parker were the principal founders of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC). He was its first president, from 1906 to 1910, and editor of the Canadian Alpine Journal from 1907 to 1930. He remained Honorary President of the ACC from 1926 until his death in 1945. The Arthur O. Wheeler hut of the ACC is named after him.

Early life Wheeler was born on May 1, 1860, at The Rocks, the Wheeler family estate near Kilkenny, Ireland. He was educated at Ballinasloe College, County Galway, and at Dulwich College, London. The family fell upon hard times in Ireland, and in 1876 they sold their estates and moved to Canada, where his father took up the post of harbour master in Collingwood, Ontario. In 1876, at the age of 16, Wheeler met noted land surveyor, Lauchlan Alexander Hamilton, and became his apprentice. In 1877, Wheeler was hired by surveyor Elihu Stewart to work north of the Great Lakes in the Algoma District of Ontario, where he spent the summer paddling a birch bark canoe. In 1878 he again worked for Stewart and travelled from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Battleford, Saskatchewan using Red River ox carts to survey Indian reserves near Battleford and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In the following three years he returned to Ontario and studied to qualify as a Dominion Land Surveyor. He qualified as Ontario Land Surveyor in 1881; as Manitoba and Dominion Land Surveyor in 1882.

Career In 1883, Wheeler was employed by the Canadian Government on pioneer surveys in the North-West Territories, which then included the future provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and parts of what are now Manitoba. In 1884 he sub-divided a number of Canadian Pacific Railway townsites along the line of railway construction. In 1885 he was appointed a technical officer of the Topographical Surveys Branch of the Department of the Interior in 1885 under Dr. Edouard Deville, Surveyor General of Canada, where he was trained in the specialty of photo-topographical surveying then being applied by Dr. Deville to the mapping of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

In 1885 the North-West Rebellion was begun by Louis Riel, which pitted the Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada. Wheeler joined the Canadian militia as a lieutenant with the Dominion Land Surveyors Intelligence Corps under Captain J. S. Dennis and, with a group of other land surveyors, marched to help quell the rebellion. At the Battle of Batoche, one surveyor was killed and three others wounded. Wheeler was grazed in the shoulder by a sniper's bullet, but a few days later learned that his family in Ontario had been informed that he had been killed in action. After returning to Ottawa, Wheeler met Clara Macoun, daughter of famous Canadian botanist John Macoun who had made numerous trips to the North-West to survey the railway and evaluate the land for farming. Arthur married Clara in Ottawa in 1888.

Lineage Wheeler was the great-grandson of Jonas Wheeler, who was Lord Bishop of St. Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny, Ireland. His grandfather was William Oliver Wheeler, who fought with the 12th Royal Lancers against Napoleon in Portugal and Spain, and later became mayor of Kilkenny. Wheeler's father, Edward Oliver Wheeler, was a captain in the Kilkenny Fusiliers.

He is the father of Sir Edward Oliver Wheeler, who participated in the first topographical survey of Mount Everest in 1921, and as Brigadier in the British Army was appointed Surveyor General of India in 1941. He is the grandfather of John Oliver Wheeler, an award-winning Canadian geologist.