Canadian Coast Guard
<% else %>A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services
by Thomas E. Appleton
The Wireless Telegraph Service
The first radio communication in Canada was established by the Marconi Company of London in 1901. At that time the Telegraph Division of the Department of Public Works had a submarine cable from Canada to Newfoundland by way of the Belle Isle Strait. Communication by this route was some-times interrupted by ice damage and, to improve the situation, wireless transmission was established between the terminus of the north shore telegraph line at Chateau Bay in Quebec and the Belle Isle.
In the same year, Guglielmo Marconi himself, seated before a wireless receiver installed in the tower on Signal Hill at St. Johns, Newfoundland, succeeded in picking up a signal transmitted from his station at Poldhu in Cornwall. This historic transmission, the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, took the form of the three dots of the Morse letter "S", and was sent with the aid of a copper wire aerial which the Marconi engineers had ingeniously hoisted aloft by means of a kite. It was a great moment for Marconi, for Newfoundland and, ultimately, for Canada. Unfortunately it was dampened somewhat by the subsequent action of companies owning the trans-Atlantic cables who, fearing competition from the new wireless telegraphy, obtained an injunction restraining Marconi from further work in Newfoundland on the basis of exclusive telecommunication rights which had previously been arranged with the Newfoundland Government. Nothing daunted, Marconi set up a station at Table Head, near Glace Bay, N.S. It was from this station that the first trans-Atlantic message was transmitted to Poldhu on December 15, 1902. By 1907 commercial traffic had been established and trans-Atlantic communication by radio became routine.
The Government of Canada had subsidized Marconi in the building of the Glace Bay station to the extent of some $80,000, surely one of the best investments they ever made. With the success of his pilot scheme, the Department of Marine and Fisheries erected, in 1904, a chain of Marconi stations, now known as marine radio stations. These were at Fame Point, Que., Heath Point, Anticosti, Point Amour on the Labrador shore, Cape Ray and Cape Race in Newfoundland. In his report for 1904, the commander of the Canadian Marine Service, O.G.V. Spain, wrote that:
"all of the above stations have reported shipping and shipping intelligence to Lloyds agent at Quebec. The Belle Isle and Point Amour Stations have proved exceptionally valuable in communicating to steamers coming through the Straits of Belle Isle news as to weather conditions prevailing in the straits."
In 1905, the Department recorded that there were 13 wireless telegraph stations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the east coast:
"erected and equipped under contract with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada, and that Company must transact its business under licence from the Department of Marine and Fisheries. . ."
In addition to shore stations, the Department fitted wireless telegraphy to the ships Stanley, Canada and Minto in 1904, and to the Lady Laurier in 1905.
After adding more stations to the Atlantic coast in 1907, the Department turned its attention to the Pacific where an American firm, the Pacific Wireless Company, operated a radio network between Seattle and Vancouver. The British Columbia end of this operation consisted of a small shack on the top of Douglas Hill in Victoria and was erected in 1906. By this time wireless was rapidly coming into favour with shipping on the west coast and, after the tragic loss of 117 lives from the American steamer Valenchia, wrecked near Pachena Point in January 1906, impetus was added to the case for better communication on the lonely west coast of Vancouver Island. By 1908 the Department had erected radio stations at Victoria, Vancouver, Cape Lazo, Pachena and Estevan Point.
Between 1910 and 1912, the Wireless Service was extended to the Great Lakes with the building of stations at Port Arthur, Midland, Point Edward, Tobermory and Sault Ste. Marie.
To cope with his rapidly expanding business of wireless telegraphy in Canada, Marconi had transferred a young technical assistant from the London company to superintend the building of the Nova Scotia stations in 1904. This young man was Charles Peter Edwards who had started with the Marconi Company when they built a demonstration wireless station at Chester, not far from Dodleston in Wales where he was born. Entering the service of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, C. P. Edwards was appointed Superintendent of Wireless Stations in 1909. From that time on he played an increasingly important role in the development of radio in this country, representing Canada at practically all the international radio conferences from 1912, including the 1929 Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea. In 1910 he transferred to the Naval Service with the Wireless Telegraphy Branch and held naval rank during the first world war. In 1936 when the Department of Transport was formed, telecommunications became the responsibility of Air Services, whose first chief was Lieutenant Commander C. P. Edwards. In 1941 he became Deputy Minister of the Department of Transport until 1948 when, on the establishment of a separate deputy minister for air, he was appointed to that office. Today, a Coast Guard vessel on the Parry Sound and Georgian Bay station is named after him.
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