Canadian Coast Guard

Ottawa

Having followed the progress of the Department of Railways and Canals from its inception in 1879 to the coming of the Department of Transport in 1936, we must now retrace our steps to the early days of the Department of Marine and Fisheries and review, in broad perspective, the canvas of marine administration in the post-Confederation world.

When the Department first occupied the West Block, that stately edifice on the hill in Ottawa, the rectangle of government accommodation overlooking the glories of wood and river, and a distant view of the Canadian Shield, contained the entire headquarters of the federal civil service. In that more leisurely age, when civil servants were holders of office in a much sought-after hierarchy, baseball, tennis and cricket were played in season on the lawns, and the architecture of Thomas Fuller, uncluttered by competition from neighbouring buildings, could be seen in all its gothic eminence. The streets of Ottawa, innocent of the roar and surge of present day traffic, were silent as horse drawn vehicles moved softly through the snow in winter, or raised a knee-high dust to the rhythm of hooves in summer. In spring and fall, despite the excitement of breakup on the river or the glories of autumn in the Gatineau hills, life was more immediately influenced by mud which, with the boardwalks and the crossing sweepers of carriage days, was a reminder of the pioneering of Colonel By and his Scots and Irish masons and labourers. From the surrounding camps and mills of the Ottawa valley, the comings and goings of the lumbermen provided a constant and earthy reminder to the civil servants that the old Canada, in all its colour and vigour, lay just beyond the doors of their high ceilinged offices. To this day, a jealously treasured belief of sentimental Ottawans that their streets are the worst in the country, undoubtedly thrives on the folklore of this period when the scratching of government pens and the clunk of the swinging axe provided an unusual theme for the capital of a new Dominion.

Compared to the numbers of people employed in the Department of Transport today, the needs of the early years, wide ranging though they were, could be handled by a relatively small staff, both in Ottawa and the field. In 1867, for example, in that year of transition when the marine affairs of the four provinces were coming together in Ottawa without benefit of act of parliament, headquarters received just over two thousand letters and dispatched about eleven hundred. Lest it be thought that our forbears were any less scrupulous in answering their correspondence than we are today, let me hasten to add that the letters received included replies to previous departmental missives and that, as always, nothing went unanswered.

There were as yet no typewriters and few offices were enlivened by the presence of women; "a fair round hand", perhaps more usual then than now, was not only attractive as an accomplishment, but as an undoubted asset for any young man aspiring to a government clerkship. In 1880 the list of headquarters staff numbered twenty-eight persons, including the minister and his deputy, the commissioner of fisheries, chief clerk and superintendent of lights, an accountant and private secretary, the remainder comprising twenty-one assorted clerks and messengers. In 1871 the total outside staff of the Department, including management, steamboat inspectors, fishery officers, lighthouse keepers and everyone else, numbered just under a thousand, including ships crews. Canal employees were not included at the time as they remained under the Department of Public Works until 1879.

I mention these figures, not to render an account of statistical trivia, but rather to show the scope of the organization of those days and to emphasize the difficulties which, already mentioned in the case of Nova Scotia, were inevitably attendant on federal administration in Canada when communications were slow, circuitous or non-existent. But our forefathers were determined to succeed, and succeed they did. If the delays of time and distance were the cause of an immediate policy of some decentralization in handling the marine affairs of Eastern Canada, the marine agency system, which had been found to be necessary in the case of Nova Scotia, became of even more importance with the accession of British Columbia to Confederation. Not long afterwards Canadian assumption of responsibility for regions previously administered by the Imperial Government and the Hudson Bay Company, and the coming into Confederation of Prince Edwards Island, were to reveal and entirely new horizon in the picture of marine development of the young dominion.

Captain Quadra, Royal Spanish Navy.
Born at Lima 1743, died at San Blas 1793.

A copy of this portrait, of which the original is in Spain, was presented to the Department in 1967 by His Excellency Javier Conde, Spanish Ambassador. The copy now hangs in the CCGS Quadra.