Series consists of general administrative records which reflect the 1923-1930 consolidation of the Dominion Lands Bureau. These records include sectional maps, 1915-1917,(Vols. 1951-1953) and Dominion Lands rulings which include a subject index to rulings 1 to 7558, 1906-1931, (Vols. 1954-1988). Volume 2005 contains two reports: a Report on Seed Grain, Fodder and Relief Indebtedness by D.L. Hogan, 1876-1926; and a Report in Connection with Ordnance Land in Front of Parliament Buildings, Quebec City, by O. Lorne Turner, 1932. A report on the Athabaska Tar Sands and a departmental phone list from circa 1917 are found in volume 3173.
The series also contains files related to the Department's western service which were created between 1898 and 1959 (Vols. 2007-2012, 2015), and Timber Berth files created by various Dominion Lands Agencies in British Columbia. After 1936 some correspondence was added to these records by the Department of Mines and Resources, Forest Products Laboratory.
Also included in this series are three indexes to the files contained in the central registry of the Dominion Lands Branch, which are now retained by the National Archives in the Dominion Lands Branch registry sub-series. The indexes provide access to these files on a subject-by-subject basis. Although researchers will find them useful for some subject matters (at one time they were used by the National Archives as finding aids) none of the indexes are complete. Now that the Dominion Lands Branch registry sub-series is listed in MINISIS (the National Archives' electronic data base) they are of less importance since MINISIS includes all files in the series. The indexes have been retained by the National Archives and were placed in this series (Vol. 3172) under administrative records for those researchers who may still wish to consult them.
Also contained in this series is a specialized index listing all the files in the Dominion Lands Branch registry sub-series, which date from 1873 to 1888, and which contain correspondence between the government of the North-West Territories and the Department of the Interior (Vol. 3172). The files are listed in the index on a year-by-year basis, with each entry giving the file number, the date of the correspondence, and a description of the subject matter. The index is believed to have been created by Prof. A.S. Morton. At one time it too was used by the National Archives as a finding aid (FA 15-13) to series RG15-D-II-1.
This series also contains, in volume 3173, records related to the disposal of departmental records. These records include a listing of registers (township registers, school lands registers, mining lands registers, and timber and grazing lands registers) transferred to the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan by the Department of the Interior in 1931. The records in this volume include lists of applications for Letters Patent made prior to 1900 and transferred to the provinces of Saskatchewan (files 1 and 2) and Manitoba (file 3). The Saskatchewan lists are collated in numerical order by Dominion Land Agency. File 1 contains list nos. 290 to 410; file 2 contains list nos. 411 to 541. The Manitoba list is collated by file number. Volume 3173 also contains four other files which document the disposal of a variety of land records of all Branches of the former Department of the Interior by the Lands Division, Department of Resources and Development. These last four files are un-numbered and un-organized. They contain copies of letters, memoranda, etc., which ordinarily would be filed under a variety of file numbers in other record groups. This volume also contains two schedules listing the mining lands files transferred to the Public Archives of Canada in 1956.
