In the field of engineering the name of Arthur Surveyer is widely known. Liberal training and broad experience have brought him to a prominent position and won for him the liberal patronage that is accorded him as senior partner in the firm of Surveyer & Frigon, consulting engineers of Montreal.
Mr. Surveyer was born in this city on the 17th of December, 1878, son of L. J. A. and M. A. Hectorine (Fabre) Surveyer, of whom more extended mention will be found elsewhere in this book, and supplemented his course of study in St. Mary’s College by a course in L’Ecole Polytechnique in which he won the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Applied Science and was graduated as a civil engineer. He also pursued a special post-graduate course at L’Ecole d’Industrie et des Mines du Hainout, Mons, Belgium. His liberal training and broad experience have made him one of the most efficient representatives of the profession. From 1904 until May, 1911, he was in the service of the Canadian department of public works and was engaged on the survey, plans and estimates for the Georgian Bay Ship Canal project and the survey of the Richelieu river for a twelve-foot canal. He was supervising engineer during the construction of the Port Arthur Dry Dock and reported on several hydro-electric projects on the St. Lawrence river. In May, 1911, he left the public service, in which he was connected with many important works, to enter upon private practice, but has been retained as consulting engineer by the public works department in a number of important matters such as the preparation of Canada’s case against the Chicago drainage canal and the report on the plans submitted to the government by the Montreal Tunnel Company and by the Montreal Central Terminal Company. Mr. Surveyer is a member of the St. Lawrence River commission, is engineer for various municipalities and is a member of a number of professional societies and associations, including the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers and the Hydrotechnic Society of France. Thoroughness has characterized all that he has undertaken. That quality was manifest in his preparation for his profession. He was a most discriminating and earnest student and in his practice he has lost sight of no detail of his work and at the same time has given due prominence to its most important problems and features. His entire professional career has been characterized by continuous advancement.
J. F. OLIVAR ASSELIN.
J. F. Olivar Asselin was born at St. Hilarion, in Charlevoix county, P. Q., November 8, 1874, a son of Rieule and Cedulie (Tremblay) Asselin, the latter of whom is still living. He emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1892, and in Fall River, Massachusetts, J. F. Olivar Asselin was for two years employed in the cotton mills.
Taking up journalism, he was at first connected with small French weekly publications. He afterward became editor of La Tribune, a Woonsocket, Rhode Island, daily, in which capacity he enjoyed the friendship and confidence of the Hon. Mr. A. J. Pothier, then lieutenant governor, and now governor of Rhode Island. While practicing his profession in Woonsocket, Mr. Asselin was principal of an evening public school in that city in 1897 and 1898.
He was the first man to enlist in the First Rhode Island Volunteers, at the breaking out of the Spanish-American War.
Returning to Canada in 1900, he was successively connected with the Montreal Herald, La Patrie, Le Journal, La Presse, La Nationaliste and Le Devoir, with a two years intermission—1901-1903—during which he was private secretary to the Hon., now Sir Lomer Gouin, then minister of colonization and public works of the province of Quebec. In 1902 he organized the Nationalist league, being for several years president of the Montreal branch. This indicates his deep interest in political problems and to disseminate the principles in which he believed, he founded La Nationaliste as the organ of the party, and for a time was editor of that publication.
He has written much upon various subjects, his publications including a series of political brochures with the title, Feuilles de Combat. He is also the author of “A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, an Essay by a Dyed-in-the-Wool French-Canadian,” which was published in 1910.