The accession comprises the working files of D.M. Duncan who served as a surveyor and field inspector for the Legal Surveys Division of Surveys and Mapping from approximately the 1930s to the 1970s. The records contain diaries, notes and reports, correspondence and photographs relating to numerous surveys and inspection trips across Canada. Also included are publications and manuals related to surveying, maps, correspondence with colleagues, including C.F. Timmins, etc.
The accession includes 2 reports and 7 albums containing photographs related to C. M. Duncan's work as a surveyor in northern Canada between 1921 and 1950. Locations include: Mackenzie and Peace River basins and towns situated on the rivers, the Gaspé Region, the Yukon Territory including the Haines-Fairbanks Pipeline right-of-way, the Northwest Territories including areas around Great Slave Lake and Wood Buffalo National Park, northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Baffin Island and Prince Patrick Island, the Alaska pipeline and the Alaska Highway. There are images of several Hudson Bay Company posts and other northern communities, some power and oil development sites as well as many aerial views, survey parties, and some of people encountered during the survey seasons. There are a few photographs of C.M. Duncan. Included is a small amount of textual records with information on some of the photographs in the albums from 1942 , 1943 and 1944. Finally the accession includes a souvenir photomechanically reproduced album on Winnipeg, n.d.
