As was standard practice in western Canada, once the base lines and meridians had been established in the Peace River Country, and settlements surveyed where warranted, townships and quarter-sections were then plotted. This was begun in 1908 by Jean-Baptiste St. Cyr, and continued in earnest by Walter MacFarlane the following year. In this process, each six mile square township was surveyed into 36 sections, with each section subdivided into four quarters of 160 acres apiece. (See Appendix C). Between each section westerly and two sections northerly, 66’ allowances were allocated so that each quarter would have access to a public road. Sections 11 and 29 of each township were then set aside as "school lands," meaning that future rural governments would be able to dispose of these and redirect the profits towards the establishment and maintenance of schools in the township. Unlike on the southern prairies, however, in what had been known as Rupert’s Land, Sections 8 and 26 were not set aside for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Nor was any land set aside for the Canadian Pacific Railway or any other railway companies.

The first applications for land in the Peace River Country were in the form of occupancy declarations made by parties who had lived in the region prior to the initial signing of Treaty 8 in June, 1899. Such people could later claim title to their holdings as free grants of upward to 160 acres apiece, provided that they continued to reside on this land. Those people of Aboriginal ancestry who had accepted Half-breed land scrip rather than money scrip or reserve land as Treaty Indians could claim 240 acres. Later, occupancy declarations would be made by squatters occupying and improving land prior to its survey. By virtue of this, such people had the right of pre-emption of the quarter-section or settlement plots on which they dwelled (see Appendix---, Section 10; and Appendix---). Beginning in the spring of 1906, their declarations were taken by the Dominion Land Surveyors working in their districts and forwarded to Ottawa.

When homesteading proper was begun in the spring of 1910, the Land Agent at Grouard, Peter Tomkins, began to accept previously verified occupancy declarations along with regular homestead applications. He also took claims by those seeking to apply Half-breed, Military or South African scrip, and also those who sought to purchase land on fractional quarters adjacent to their homestead or scrip land. This included land in the surveyed settlements of the region as well as the quarter-sections in the surveyed townships. In May 1910, due to a veritable land rush on Grande Prairie, Tomkins made an excursion through the region, taking applications and adjudicating cases where more than one party had applied for a particular quarter-section or settlement plot. Subsequent applications, however, were to be made at Grouard. Then, in July 1911, the government opened a Dominion Land Office at Grande Prairie, which handled applications for land south of Dunvegan, including, in the spring of 1912, land on the Pouce Coupe Prairie of British Columbia. Land north of the Peace River continued to be administered from Grouard with a sub-agency opened at Shaftesbury in 1912. This included the area around Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope in British Columbia. In early 1915, the Dominion Land Office at Grouard was transferred to Peace River. Shortly thereafter, sub-agencies were opened at Pouce Coupe and Fort St. John.

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