LAC LA BICHE - It stands to reason that a statue depicting a famous explorer and his guides would be known as a surveying "control point" in the community.
Lac La Biche residents may have noticed some devices near the David Thompson statue along Churchill Drive over the last few months as consultants used the statue area as a reference point for work being done at McArthur Park on the other end of Churchill Drive.
Lac La Biche County spokesperson Jihad Moghrabi says the apparatus near the statue was an Alberta Survey Control Monument (ASCM). The device was being used during the engineering phase of the planned McArthur Park facelift.
"Surveyors use it to reference their survey points and elevation measurements," he said."The reason why the ASCM is so far away is because the ASCM near the David Thompson Stature is set up over a known control point, and cross-references survey points they are collecting in the McArthur Park area to ensure accuracy."
Work on the park will include the removal of the main baseball diamond to make way for new green-space areas, walking trails, a cultural garden space and a skate park. The five-year project was initially budgeted at $4.6 million, but was increased another $1.5 million to $6.1 million late last year. The time-frame for the project was also reduced to three years, with completion expected in 2025.
In 1798, Thompson introduced himself to the Indigenous inhabitants of the area when he arrived after leaving his Hudson Bay Company job in Churchill, Manitoba and paddling across Western Canada, charting maps as he went. The Welsh-born Thompson is credited with mapping more than 1.5 million square miles of North America.
The Thompson statue was built in 1998 to mark the bicentennial of his arrival in the area. The statue depicts the explorer in a canoe with the best devices of his time to reference survey points — a star-charting sexton, and two passengers with local knowledge.
