Eric Clarence Coursier

(1892.04.27 – 1978.02.14)
DLS, SLS
Commission #082
(1931.11.25)

On Tuesday, February 14, 1978, Eric Clarence Coursier passed away in the local hospital at Prince Albert. Eric was a Dominion, Saskatchewan and Alberta Land Surveyor and was an Honorary Life Member in the Saskatchewan Land Surveyors' Association. He was elected to Honorary Life Membership at the 60th Annual Meeting of this Association held in North Battleford in May of 1970 and was the first professional land surveyor to be so elected.

Eric was born in Revelstoke, B.C. on May 27, 1892 and took his early education there. Following his graduation from High School in 1910 he joined a survey party under P. B. Street, D.L.S. of Toronto and worked in the vicinity of Shuswap Land and Golden. In 1912 Eric qualified to article as a D.L.S. and became articled to A. V. Chase, D.L.S. of Orillia. He was later articled to C. H. Taggart and Norman Stewart and worked as chain-man or, a winter survey under P. E. Palmer in 1914-15. He received his D.L.S. Commission in 1916 and spent that summer as assistant to Norman Stewart on Surveys of the Railway Belt.

In 1917 Eric went overseas with the 2nd Canadian Tramway Co. and took part in the location and construction of light railways in France.

Eric returned to Canada in 1919 and resumed his survey activities. He spent two summers on subdivision surveys in the Peace River country. In 1920 Eric qualified for his Alberta Land Surveyors' commission but never applied for it. While employed on survey returns in Ottawa late in 1921 he met his charming wife, the former Irene Montgomery of North Gower. They were married in January of 1922.

From 1922 to 1930 Eric was Forest Engineer and Surveyor with the Dominion Forest Service working out of Prince Albert and in 1930, after the resources were transferred to the provinces, he was named Supervisor of Surveys with the newly formed Department of Natural Resources, the post he held until 1936. It was in 1931 that he received his Commission as a Saskatchewan Land Surveyor. From 1936 to 1944 he was District Superintendent, Department of Natural Resources, Prince Albert. He resigned from the Department in 1944 and from 1945 to 1957 worked with the Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Company as field representative and pulpwood buyer in Saskatchewan , and Manitoba. From 1947 to 1961 Eric also conducted a part-time private practise in Prince Albert and in 1961 became an Associate Member of the firm of Coursier, Webb and Webster. In 1967 when Eric's only articled student, A.G. Reimer, received his Commission as a Saskatchewan Land Surveyor, the firm of Coursier, Reimer and Associates, was formed.

Eric served on the Council of this Association and was President in 1958. He was also active in Kiwanis and was President of the Prince Albert Kiwanis in 1941.

Eric was a man of strong convictions and of high personal and professional integrity.

(SLSA Biography Committee - 1978)