Hi Nad,
If you have the land location, you can figure out where they were in relation to the town of Watrous. Starting roughly at the Manitoba-Ontario border, the survey went from the southeast to the northwest. The meridian, which will be noted as W1, W2, W3, W4, or W5, was a surveyed baseline that ran north-south. The 4th meridian is the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, so most Saskatchewan "addresses" are W2 or W3.
Range lines run north-south, parallel to the meridians, and are six miles apart. They are numbered west from the meridian; i.e., the further west you go, the bigger the range numbers, until you get to the next meridian, when they start again at 1. Township lines are also six miles apart, but run east-west. Townships are numbered starting at the US border, and going north; i.e., the further north, the bigger the township number, for each range. The grid pattern of the range and township lines makes squares, called townships, of 36 square miles each.
Each of the townships is split into sections of one square mile (640 acres) each. The sections are numbered from the range line, going west on the first "row," then east on the next, so that sections #7, 18, 19, 30, & 31 are north of section 6, while sections 12, 13, 24, 25, & 36 are directly above section 1.
Each section is further divided into 4 quarters (160 acres each), which are denominated NW, NE, SW, SE. It was these "quarters" which were issued as homesteads, and which could be purchased for $10.00. There had to be certain "improvements" made, such as building a house, clearing/ploughing a certain amount of land within three years, and you had to live on the land for at least six months out of every year to "prove up" your homestead; that is, receive the clear title from the government.
The location of land is always noted in the form quarter, then the section, then the township, then the range, then the meridian; e.g., NE 12-35-10-W2 would mean the north east quarter of section 12 in the 35th township from the US border, the 10th range west from the second surveyed base line.
If you go on the Library and Archives Canada site (
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html ), the census section of the Canadian Genealogy Centre has a map from 1904 of the Humboldt electoral district. Watrous is not marked on it (town wasn't there in 1904), but it's roughly at the bottom of Big Quill lake, about half way between the lake and Saskatoon. If you have the land location, you should be able to figure out roughly where the farm was in relation to the town.
Hope this helps.
Gene-ee-us
