Canadian Coast Guard

Marine and Fisheries

The first Minister of Marine and Fisheries was the Hon. Peter Mitchell. In taking up his wide and all-embracing office in the care of matters maritime, the like of which was new to North America, the new minister was well qualified by business and political experience. A man of property, but thoroughly practical, with a sound background of law, lumbering and shipbuilding before entering politics, he became Premier of New Brunswick when his Province came to Confederation in the Session of 1866-7. Although his department had commenced activity on July 1, 1867, the Act formally authorizing legal entity remained to be passed in the first session of the Dominion Parliament, receiving assent on May 22, 1868.

The City of Ottawa, not long emerged from the roistering lumber centre of Bytown, which had seen the building of the Rideau canal under a distinguished military engineer Lieutenant Colonel By, had already taken on the familiar skyline of pointed gothic architecture, newly erected in Nepean stone, which was to form the background of government activity to the present day. In those days the Centre Block, or Parliament Building which was burned out in 1916 and the East and West Blocks, then termed the Departmental Buildings, were thought to be more than sufficient to house the offices of legislature and the civil service for many years to come. In fact, it is doubtful if this state of affairs existed for long, if at all, for it was nearly a year before the Department of Marine and Fisheries could move into the West Block, in space vacated by the Department of Crown Lands, which had been transferred elsewhere.

The subjects to be administered by the Department were enumerated as:

"Sea-Coast and Inland Fisheries, Trinity Houses, Trinity Boards, Pilots, Decayed Pilots Funds, Beacons, Buoys, Lights and Lighthouses and their maintenance, Harbours, Ports, Piers, Wharves, Steamers and Vessels belonging to the Government of Canada, except gunboats or other vessels of war, harbour commissioners, harbour masters, classification of vessels, examination and granting of certificates of masters and mates, and others in the merchant service, shipping masters and shipping offices, inspection of steamboats and board of steamboat inspection, enquiries into causes of shipwrecks, establishment, regulation and maintenance of marine and seamen hospitals, and care of distressed seamen, and generally such matters as refer to the marine and navigation of Canada."

The old Department of Public Works of the United Provinces, which had built the canals and handled much of the marine interests of Quebec and Ontario, passed the canal business to the new Dominion Public Works Department for the time being, until, in 1879, that portfolio was divided into two separate ministries, the one continuing as Works, the other being designated Railways and Canals.

In the Province of Quebec, all matters relating to lights, buoys, beacons, pilots and pilotage, which had previously been administered by the two Trinity Houses, now came under a more stringent form of government control. The Trinities retained their title and functions to outward appearances but, in fact, they ceased to be autonomous bodies with very little executive interference from Government, and became subject to the checks and balances of normal civil administration. Forty-one lights of a small inexpensive description were maintained between Montreal and Quebec, and twenty-three below Quebec, those in the Gulf and Belle Isle Strait being described as sea lights, chiefly of a high order. In Ontario and Quebec above Montreal, the new Department took over sixty-seven lights from the Provincial Public Works. In all these areas some of the lights were maintained on lightships, as time, money and engineering techniques had not yet become equal to the great task of building fixed aids to navigation in our shipping routes.

The New Brunswick and Nova Scotia lights, which had been maintained by the Commissioners of Public Institutions and the Board of Works respectively, on the basis of a tax or duty levied on ships according to their tonnage, presented something of a problem in the mechanics of administration, owing to their great distance from Ottawa. Agents were therefore appointed so that the business of the department could be transacted without delay, through local offices, a system which would ultimately develop into the regional administration of the Department of Transport today. The New Brunswick lights comprised fifteen good sea lights and ten minor ones, while Nova Scotia had no fewer than fifty-nine.

Original foghorn, Partridge Island, N.B.
(New Brunswick Museum)

Among the assets of the Commissioners of Public Institutions of the Province of New Brunswick was the steam fog alarm station on Partridge Island, off the harbour of Saint John. This piece of apparatus had been erected in 1857 to the designs of Robert Foulis, although not actually by him, and was the first efficient equipment of the type in the world. Robert Foulis was a versatile Scot who had been shipwrecked on the Nova Scotia coast in 1822 while en route as an emigrant to the United States, and who had then settled in Halifax before moving to Saint John. He was a man of many talents and real ability, far removed from the dilettante, who had started life as a medical student before turning to engineering; he painted sufficiently well to make a living from portrait work at times, and started up an iron foundry in Saint John at a later stage. Like many men of the kind, he was more interested in ideas than in their exploitation, and his design for the steam fog horn was plagiarized by another, although Foulis was eventually credited with the invention in entirety. He lived to the age of ninety, but died penniless in 1886.

The growth of marine activity, which resulted from Confederation, was nowhere more remarkable than in the business of public safety and steamboat inspection. Mandatory inspection of steamers had been in force in the Province of Canada for some years before 1867, for which the government charged inspection fees, and the inspectors had formed a board, which met at different places as required, to examine engineers and award certificates, and to standardize the methods and procedures of the business. In New Brunswick, which had legislated for steam navigation from 1843, vessels were examined by the Government Inspector of Steamboats, but the ship owner paid nothing for such services, the salaries of the inspectors being defrayed as a normal commitment of the public treasury. One of the first accomplish-ments of the Department of Marine and Fisheries was to administer a consolidated act for the inspection of steamboats, under which the inspectors were organized in districts, and to form a Board of Steamboat Inspection presided over by a chairman appointed by statute. The first chairman of the Board of Steamboat Inspection was Samuel Risley, the inspector for the West Ontario, Huron and Superior

Division, who had been steamboat inspector at Toronto for the Province of Canada. Samuel Risley had acquired the reputation of a thoroughly competent and impartial servant of shipping, and it was very largely due to him that the early inspection service, inevitably based on the opinions of individual men rather than on a body of knowledge proved and documented, was organized on lines capable of later expansion to the scientific public safeguard it would eventually become. As early as 1857, a minute in the State Book of the Legislature, in the stately phraseology of the time, began:

"May it please your Excellency, . . . . . . on the report of this date . . . . . . of Samuel Risley . . . . . the Committee respectfully recommend that the steam ferry The Citizen, plying on the Bay or in the Harbour at Toronto, Be pronounced unsafe and unfit to carry passengers . . ."

There had been many such, and the Chairman of the Board had acquired a nose for unsafe vessels. In those days the construction of steamships was often carried out with a cheerful optimism far removed from the demands of technical method.

Apart from matters of technical import, the portfolio of Marine and Fisheries reflected a growing awareness that seamen were entitled to some of the benefits which their more fortunate brethren ashore were presumed to enjoy. The harsh climate of Canada, and the rough comradeship of the pioneer, was no place for the weak and, if the sparsely populated Dominion had been spared the worst of the horrors of the early industrial revolution in Europe, there remained ample scope for social reform. In those days, government nomenclature in such matters followed the direct approach of the age, and Marine and Fisheries were enjoined to provide for some of their faithful servants under the spine-chilling title of the "Decayed Pilots Fund", which was actually a contributory pension scheme. Perhaps, viewed in a modern light, there is something to be said for such a euphuism as Senior Citizen but, in 1867, people were accustomed to hardships then considered inseparable from life and it had not been long since institutions for the segregation of the quarantined had been known as pest houses. Even before Confederation there had been an effective effort to provide for sick and disabled seamen and, in Montreal, they had been admitted to the General Hospital in return for tonnage dues collected at the port and remitted direct to the hospital. Marine hospitals, also supported by tonnage dues were in existence in New Brunswick ports, notably Saint John, St. Andrew, Richibucto, Bathurst and Douglastown. In Nova Scotia there were no marine hospitals, but the City Hospital at Halifax admitted sick seamen on a scheme somewhat similar to that at Montreal. After 1868 these matters were rationalized by an act of parliament establishing tonnage dues to provide for the proper treatment of sailors in the Provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; in Ontario, where seamen formed a less distinctive group in the general population, both by reason of their seasonal employment and less nomadic way of life, no such provision existed, and the act did not apply.

However patronizing the attitude of the mid nineteenth century towards the unfortunates of life, the Victorians were nothing if not practical people, and a genuine humanity had set up establishments in remote places to give shelter and assistance to shipwrecked mariners, and to provide some chance of salvaging property when this could be done. As we shall see later, a great stimulus to the rescue organization had been provided through private philanthropy and a burning desire to combat the apathy of officialdom and public indifference. By Confederation, there were government humane establishments on Sable Island and St. Paul's Island, together with superintendent, surfboats and crew, on a permanent basis. Smaller outfits were maintained by the light keepers at Scatterie, Mud and Seal Islands, Nor did the exercise of brave and disinterested rescue, so often displayed by seamen when disaster lurked on any day, escape official recognition. Marine and Fisheries awarded testimonials, by plate, binoculars, certificate or cash as appropriate, to persons rendering valuable services in the saving of life and property.

Marine and Fisheries also advised Government on a bill to regulate the shipping of seamen and the conditions of apprenticeship of boys, and to establish shipping masters on a uniform basis. Prior to Confederation, shipping masters were remunerated by fees of office except at Quebec, where the heavy nature of the duties warranted a salary in addition. To this day, most shipping masters continue to receive fees of office, on an agreed scale of tariff. In the same bill provision was made for the vexed question of certificates of competency. Up till this period the British Board of Trade, as has been related, would not acknowledge certificates granted in Canada, or in any other of the Colonies for that matter, which were therefore of limited use. This was of the utmost importance to the future of Dominion shipping, and negotiations were conducted with the British government by Sir Georges-Etienne Cartier, then Minister of Militia, who happened to be in England at the time, as a result of which legislation was introduced in Westminster to recognize Canadian certificates on the same basis as those issued in the United Kingdom. Looking back from today, it is hard to remember that many matters which are now taken for granted, as being so obvious that no comment would be required, were then subjects for serious discussion at very high level. The long process of parturition involved in our history was one of steady progress in apparently obscure matters which, in total, represents a civilized and mutually respected transfer of authority to its rightful seat. If our path to nationhood included long meanderings in negotiation of complex technical and administrative matters, who is to say that, in the long run, this process of evolution is not as fascinating, and as abiding, as the more melodramatic clash and flash of revolution?

Waterfront scene at Quebec about 1870
(Notman Archives)

While the certification of masters and mates produced, in due course, a new professional outlook in the sea managers of our merchant marine, the transient nature of employment at sea, and the complete severance of seamen from life on shore, had made but little change in the status of the sailor. Small wonder then that the seamen was subject to all kinds of petty fraud, and that his time in port found expression in exuberance of a type essential to provide some relief from the conditions of his daily life and his distance from society as a whole. His was the muscle power necessary to sail ships and, as with all essential properties of trade in the days of laissez-faire, there were not lacking those who would supply to order. Suppliers of seamen were known as crimps, a class of traffickers in human bondage common to most of the larger seaports of the world. In Quebec and Montreal, with a great traffic of foreign ships, opportunities for desertion in the face of smooth-tongued persuasion, and a continual waterfront activity of many persons who lived only by their wits, the Provincial Government of Canada had maintained a river and harbour police force for many years, supported by a tax on shipping, which was taken over by Marine and Fisheries.

Supervision of the Quebec Marine Police Force was combined with the office of Shipping Master, and a close watch could therefore be maintained to guard the welfare of the sailor. When the crimping business was brisk, there were high profits and quick returns for the crimps; fines, which had hitherto done little to restrain this evil trade, were replaced by imprisonment under legislation introduced about 1872. The crimp profited from both his clients for, on the pretext of offering more remunerative employment in some other ship, he would entice his prey to the dubious pleasures of a back street boarding house, charge him extortionately for rotgut liquor and accommodation which he was seldom in condition to notice, perhaps thankfully, and then deliver the unfortunate man to the focsle of an outward bound ship in exchange for a payment from the master. The police operated from rowboats, and later a steam launch, and would come alongside any ship on request, at the hoisting of the appropriate flag, to sort out trouble. They also preserved law and order in general, for the river was littered with rafts, bateaux, steamboats and schooners, with a floating population forgotten today. The seamen themselves, of course, were a robust lot, and the police must have had a difficult job at times. In his report for 1870, Chief Constable R. H. Russell wrote:

"The police execute all warrants aboard ships, and along the shore on both sides of the river, and the adjoining streets and houses. They also go in search of timber and boats, or other articles lost or stolen from ships, coves or booms, which, when found, are frequently taken back to the ship or police dock. Four hundred and sixty-nine seamen and others have been arrested by the police during the season of navigation, one hundred and eighty of whom were committed to gaol . . ."

One hundred and nine offences involved desertion, almost entirely from overseas ships.

The crimping business, and the many afflictions associated with the conditions in large ports, were worse in Quebec than in Saint John, where the comparative nearness to the seething activity of Boston enabled ships to obtain crews by coastal steamer in times of shortage of seamen. Despite the marine police, effective though they were in a limited field, and the efforts of shipping masters in administering a code of law which ensured certain basic rights in the contractual engagement of crews, once a ships topsails had receded below the rim of the sea horizon, a man or boy was pretty much at the mercy of circumstances and the whims of those in authority over him; so it remained, law or no law, until the sailing ship ceased to be. It was ameliorated perhaps, in Canada, by close family connections between owner, masters and men, which existed in some cases.

In the rugged conditions attaching to almost any form of seafaring at the time, the government service never had any difficulties in finding crews to man their vessels and it began to assume an air of permanence which must have been difficult to sustain in the days of the contract ships. A division of function began to be made between the Dominion steamers, which served the light stations and laid the buoys, and the Dominion cruisers, which were technically armed and carried out the enforcement of the fisheries protection service. Sometimes the duties were interchanged but, in the Dominion cruisers, one can detect a lingering presence from the old Provincial Marine which gave them the necessary air of authority.

The fleet was much the same as in the days when Francois Baby supplied a new look in the marine equipment of the Province; at Halifax, the Druid had been relieved of the hard seagoing involved in attendance on the Atlantic lights she had been built originally for a river steamer and was transferred to the Quebec station in exchange for the Lady Head, a Napier screw steamer more suited to the work. The Napoleum III carried out the bulk of the supply work in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Richelieu paddled her way around the upper River in the service of the Trinity House of Montreal. The dashing La Canadienne, surely one of the loveliest little ships we ever had, headed a veritable fleet of sailing schooners employed in the fisheries service. Water Lily, Sweepstake, New England, and other working schooners, were chartered by the Department of Marine and Fisheries and sent to cruise the fishing grounds.