American surveyors are heirs to an enviable abundance of surveying history and lore that has accrued over the centuries of North America’s political development, but perhaps a disadvantage of this great wealth is the disincentive to seek historical treasures beyond the nearest national border. Fortunately, from time to time a resource shines brilliantly enough from over our horizon to remind us of the remarkable triumphs of individuals of other nationalities who have surveyed across the globe through the ages.
One such gem is The Measure of the Man, a recent publication by the professional association Survey and Spatial New Zealand, which documents the career of a truly impressive figure who left a legacy of surveying accomplishments that bridged New-Zealand’s late-pioneer era into the modern period. Subtitled The Life of Archie Bogle CBE, FNZIS, Surveyor of the Century, this excellent book vividly recalls the fascinating life and times of Archibald Hugh Bogle, known better among his friends and admirers simply as “Archie.”
Archie Bogle began his life as a surveyor at the dawn of the twentieth century and would ultimately build a peerless résumé of progressive achievements spanning seven decades. Remembered nearly as well for his cultural and literary contributions as for his surveying work, he is appropriately celebrated in The Measure of the Man with both a sampling of his own prolific writings and the tributes of fellow surveyors, separated into three major sections within the text.
The first section is a reproduction of the subject’s own partial autobiography, published posthumously for the first time in 1975 as a stand-alone volume entitled Links in the Chain: Field Surveying in Early New Zealand. Archie’s vivid recollections of youthful exploits on pioneering survey crews are full of humor and rich detail, serving at turns as history, comedy, travelogue, ethnological study, and ecological rumination.
The concerns of the men—both Pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent) and indigenous Maori—who spent long weeks and months surveying through the primeval bush of New Zealand’s North Island are recalled with particular attention toward some of the unremitting dangers they faced, such as the possibility of drowning while crossing wild rivers, and the constant threat of lethal injury or infection arising from bushwhacking accidents. A notable hazard that might not be apparent to a modern reader appears in multiple anecdotes, including one which nearly had deadly consequences for Archie himself: at a time when early settlers would string electric utility lines along creek bottoms to reach their homesteads before the lands had been measured, later-arriving government surveyors could be literally shocked to discover the presence of such power lines when pulling their steel chains from one steep wooded slope to the next.
Other adventures recounted from the old times involve amusing modes of entertainment that backcountry surveyors derived for themselves, coincidentally demonstrating the competitive athleticism for which Archie was known, as in the races among canoe-borne survey teams to be the first to catch a tow from a passing river steamboat.
The wonderful prose of Part One’s Links in the Chain defies a reader to depart with anything other than a deep fondness for its author. Archie’s descriptions of interactions with local Maori people reflect an obvious respect and admiration for their customs, while his expressions of praise and gratitude toward both mentors and subordinates indicate the quality of his professionalism. The individual tales that flesh out the framework of the autobiography never fail to entertain. Whether Archie is recounting his matching of wits against local residents determined to pull the wool over the surveyors’ eyes, or he is conclusively demonstrating why the camp cook was the critical member of any survey party, he writes with an easy cheerfulness that cannot fail to raise a smile. The text is further brought alive with numerous period photographs interspersed throughout the chapters. Many of these have been colorized for the current publication.
The only problem with Part One is that the brevity and incomplete nature of the original autobiography leave a reader wishing for more. Happily, Part Two and Part Three of The Measure of the Man rise to the task of satisfying this singular shortcoming.
The second section, “Surveyor Extraordinaire,” fills in the biographical information absent from Links in the Chain with twenty-first century research by Donald McKay, a surveyor who early in his surveying journey enjoyed the privilege of meeting the elder Archie Bogle. Mr. McKay’s contributions provide a succinct yet comprehensive overview of the major elements of Archie’s life, including his family relationships and his military service in each of the World Wars. The presented chronology of events paints a clearer picture for the reader of the overall trajectory of Archie’s career, with a summary of professional honors that emphasizes his many contributions to the field that merit a continuing appreciation of the Surveyor of the Century.
Part Three, “The Best of Bogle,” gives the reader another opportunity to enjoy Archie’s own gifts for language alongside various tributes from his contemporaries. The section’s sub-heading, “Tall tales and true by or about Archie Bogle,” offers a fair indication of its contents. Short stories, editorial cartoons, reports, and speech transcripts have been compiled by the editors to display multi-faceted career-spanning talents of an uncommon caliber. Many of the entries were drawn from the annals of the New Zealand surveyors’ professional journal, as edited by Archie over a period of 29 years. Others appear as extracts from various military magazines to which he contributed while serving as a soldier on the Western Front during the Great War (a conflict of personal calamity that claimed the lives of all three of his brothers along with those of three of his four brothers-in-law). One segment details his efforts in recording for posterity the call of the native huia bird, a species that had been abundant in his early years as a pioneer surveyor but soon thereafter was hunted to extinction.
As insightful and interesting as all the third section’s elements are, the brightest jewels are the short pieces of fiction that fully retain their capacity to elicit a reader’s outright laughter. Upon exposure to these examples of Archie’s wit, the first impression of an American audience may be to note how his short stories compare rather favorably against the best of Mark Twain’s works of humor.
The final part of the book is highlighted by an extensive series of photographs augmenting those that had been included in the original autobiography. Beyond merely depicting Archie’s friendly face in stages of both youth and seniority, this collection showcases some of the beautifully detailed plats of survey that he personally prepared, demonstrating another area of artistic endeavor in which he excelled.
The editors conclude their work by reprinting the obituary for Archie that was published in a professional magazine shortly after his passing on March 14, 1972. It remains a fitting remembrance, particularly given its prescient statement, “There may well come a time when a surveyor will enquire as to who was Archibald Bogle, but we think that day is not close.”
One minor challenge for an international reader of The Measure of the Man could be the frequency of Maori-language loanwords that permeate New Zealand’s lexicon, but the meanings can generally be discerned through context without much difficulty. Otherwise, there is nothing that might serve to temper a recommendation of this book. Any reader whose interests encompass land surveying, history, New Zealand, humor, or literature will find something to love in this book, and those who enjoy the intersections of several of these elements will consider it a treasure trove.
The editors of The Measure of the Man sought to create a suitable and lasting tribute to an individual who clearly deserved his accolades as the “Surveyor of the Century.” They can consider themselves to have been successful, as any land surveyor who henceforth reads their book will be proud to have answered the same calling as Archie Bogle did, so many years ago in New Zealand.
Kevin Brockett is a professional land surveyor who is licensed in eight states. He manages a full-service survey department for Triad Engineering, Inc., in Morgantown, West Virginia.