Otto Julius Klotz
Inducted In
1972
A Preston native, Otto Julius Klotz, scientist and surveyor, at one time journeyed 2,000 miles in a canoe, making eighty-seven portages, while conducting a survey of ice and weather conditions along Hudson Strait and in Hudson Bay. With others, he was investigating for the government, the feasibility of a Hudson Bay route to Europe. He also made an Alaska- British Columbia boundary survey, and a survey of lands granted for the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He completed the first longitudinal girdle of the earth, was an expert in the sciences of earthquakes, and published ninety-nine papers on his work.
His diaries, which he maintained every day for more than fifty-seven years, are in the Dominion Archives.
Klotz, whose father was a famous Preston pioneer, attended Preston, Berlin and Galt schools and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1872. Following surveying for the government, he was appointed Dominion Astronomer in 1917.