Fonds consist of diaries containing entries maintained throughout most of Klotz's working life, 1866-1923; correspondence, notes, reports, and memoranda relating mostly to the Alaska boundary, genealogical notes, poems, and addresses, miscellaneous programs and souvenirs, n.d., 1903; printed material relating mostly to the Alaska boundary, 1886-1907; "Statistics and History of the Preston School compiled and written by Otto Klotz for the use of His Family", photocopy, 1892; scrapbooks including clippings relating to the Klotz family, Otto Klotz's work, professional matters, and world events, 1886-1922. The fonds contains works of art entitled "One of Sitting Bull's Band of Sioux Indians", "Weh-Win-Chica-Pow, Cree Indian", and "Fort Ellice", [ca. 1881]; and a portrait entitled "Wah-Coo-ai, an Assiniboine Indian" from the 1881 diary of Klotz. The fonds also contains portraits of Mrs. & Mr. Otto Julius Klotz and their family; trip to San Francisco, California, USA, on board of ship "Iris", and to Mexico, 1915; photos of their children and house at Ottawa in 1912 and winter 1916. Photos by William James Topley, Ottawa and James Esson, Preston, Ont.
Klotz, Otto, 1852-1923 : Otto Julius Klotz, a native of Preston, Ont., was educated at Galt Grammar School and the University of Toronto, and graduated as a civil engineer in 1872 from the University of Michigan. In 1879 he entered the Topographical Surveys Branch of the Department of the Interior at Ottawa, Ont., and for the next thirty years he was engaged in surveys of the Northwest, in British Columbia, and in the Yukon. He was appointed Assistant Chief Astronomer to the Department of the Interior in 1908, and in 1917 he became director of the Dominion Observatory. In 1898 he was sent to Europe by the Canadian Government to gather documents concerning the Alaska boundary. A member of numerous learned societies, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1910.
See also: The Canadian Who's Who, 1910 and The Canadian Encyclopedia, 1985.
