Ken Pawson

(By Ken Allred, on the occasion of the presentation of Honorary Life Membership to Ken Pawson, 2002)

Ken Pawson was born in Yorkshire, England and received his commission as an Alberta Land Surveyor on July 30, 1958 and was active for 31 years.

Ken was also a Canada Lands Surveyor, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and had memberships in the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and the National Society of Professional Surveyors.

Ken served in the RAF Transport Command during the war. His formal surveying education was obtained through the British Ordnance Survey at University College, London. His professional experience includes 2.5 years on a British Antarctic Expedition and several years with the Colonial Service in the Tonga Islands, Sarawak and Western Samoa.

Following three years in the private sector, he became city land surveyor in Calgary in 1961 and was responsible for the introduction of the control survey program in 1962. In fact, it was his continued pressure in pursuing the bureaucratic system that made the control system a reality.

Ken served on Council in 1966-1967 and was a member of the Control Surveys Committee, Practice Committee, Education Committee and Metric Conversion Committee.

In 1989, he won the Association's Outstanding Service Award. Ken lists his interests as medical hypnosis, astronomy, mountaineering, skiing, photography, canoeing, camping, and just being bloody lazy.

In addition to being our photographer at our annual general meetings for many years, he is the author of Antarctica: To a Lonely Land I Know (2001) and Brave Little Heart, a winner of the Dog Writer of America Award.

When Ken received the Outstanding Service Award, a letter from one of his former crew members was read, which said in part: Ken had the uncanny knack of combining boss with friend. When the going gets tough one could always count on Ken - he sticks by you.

His crews' attitude was never "that's good enough" it was, 'that's what Ken would like."

The crews that worked with Ken often said out of respect, "go spit in the Devil's eye and I will be beside you."

Mr. Pawson addressed the luncheon as follows:
My memory went back to surveying about a week ago when I saw a picture of the windmill down in southwest Calgary. First of all, we had to do a reconnaissance for the control surveys. Walter Stillwell and I were out there, when a great big black dog came out - as you looked at it, it got to be the size of a Belgian work horse. I positioned myself between two trees and the dog was so big he couldn't get back at me. Walter Stillwell was as broad as the dog and couldn't get through the trees either so he had to go up the windmill, leaving the dog to salivate down below. Eventually, a kid comes out of the house nearby and whistles at the dog to sit down. The kid answered the door when I had to go to the house later and indicated that he would get his mother to answer my questions. I expected a three hundred pound monster, when along came one of the best looking women you could see in a thin, blue, almost see-through night-dress. By that time, I forgot what I had gone to the door for. Coming from England, I used some different terms. I was sent out to "pick up the pavement." In England, we refer to the sidewalk as the pavement. I went out and meticulously surveyed about seven hundred feet of sidewalk. As an English surveyor, you can screw up sometimes.

It's been a good life. I've enjoyed it; even surveying among headhunters in Borneo. It was good fun; they are pretty decent guys, most of them. The only difference between the headhunters there and the people who murder and kill here is that over there they don't waste the head, they keep the damn thing.

I'm leaving a copy of my book with Ken for the Association library. It might be of use someday.