Fall - Saskatchewan Land Surveyors Association

The EngagementBy Malcolm Vanstone, SLSITThis is just a brief story behind the photo you see here.This is how I proposed to my girlfriend, Sara Parsons, of3 ½ years on September 23, 2006. The photo was taken nearthe farm that I grew up on south of Carnduff, SK. The messagewas cultivated into the SE. ¼ Sec.9-2-33-1. I startedwith the design in AutoCAD then scaled it to make the widthof the letters be 33’ (the width of the cultivator that I plannedon using). An air photo of the section was obtained fromISC and geodetic coordinates of the section corners werecalculated. The air photo was geo-referenced to the theoreticallat’s and long’s and the design was positioned over theair photo to fit between the row of trees that is at the top ofthe heart (east) and the bluff of trees to the right (south) of theheart. 185 points were created in AutoCAD and uploaded toSARA WILL YOU MARRY ME?my GPS controller, all of which were then staked in the field.A design plan was plotted on paper which was used whencultivating around the sticks to determine which sticks wentwith which letter. A friend of the family, Denis Day of FastTruck Ltd in Carnduff, had purchased a helicopter recently.A quick phone call to him ensured that we had a bird’s eyeview of the message. The photo was taken from the helicopterhovering at roughly 1000’. It was an exciting day, onethat we will remember forever.I would like to thank my parents, Merlin and Carol Vanstone,the Condon Survey Group and Fast Trucking Ltd. forhelping to make this all come together. 264 SLSA Corner Post Fall 2006