Minas Basin

The Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.

 

Geography

Boundary

The Minas Basin forms the eastern part of the Bay of Fundy which splits at Cape Chignecto and is delineated by the massive basalt headlands of Cape Split and Cape d’Or. The Minas Basin is split into four sections: Cobequid Bay, from the mouth of the Salmon River to a narrow point between Economy and the Noel Shore; Central Minas Basin, from the mouth of Cobequid Bay to the narrow point between Parrsboro and Cape Blomidon; the Southern Bight, from the mouth of the Avon River to the narrow point between Cape Blomidon and the Noel Shore; and the Minas Channel, from Central Minas Basin to the narrow line between Cape Chignecto and the Annapolis Valley Shore.^[1]

Several important rivers in Nova Scotia drain into the Minas Basin: Shubenacadie River, Cornwallis River, Avon River, Gaspereau River, and the Salmon River. Lesser rivers include the Canard River, Diligent River, Farrell River, and Debert River.

Along the northern edge of the Minas Basin lies a chain of intermittent high-cliffed basaltic bluffs and islands called the Basalt Headlands.

Tides

Burntcoat Head, located on the “Noel Shore” along the south side of the Minas Basin, is the location of the highest tidal range ever recorded, exceeding 16-metre (52 ft) during a spring tide only) and has one of the highest average tidal ranges every day. The waters of Minas Bay exchange with the main part of the Bay of Fundy through the Minas Channel which flows between Cape Split and Cape Sharp, creating extremely strong tidal currents. The water in the Minas Basin is a dense and nearly opaque reddish brown due to large amounts of suspended silt which are continually churned by tidal currents. At mid-tide, the currents exceed 8 knots (4-metre (13 ft) per second), and the flow in the deep, 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) -wide channel on the north side of Cape Split equals the combined flow of all the rivers and streams on Earth together (about 4-cubic-kilometre (0.96 cu mi) per hour.).

Communities

Several communities border the Minas Basin or the rivers that flow into it. They include Truro, Windsor, Parrsboro, Great Village, Bass River, Five Islands, Economy, Wolfville, Walton, and Kingsport. Historically, Parrsboro, Wolfville, and Kingsport were connected by the MV Kipawo ferry, whose name was derived from the three communities.

Parks

Provincial parks at Anthony (near Truro), Five Islands, and Cape Blomidon allow visitors to enjoy and explore the Minas Basin. Community parks interpreting the Basin include the Kingsport waterfront in Kings County; the Walton Lighthouse and Burntcoat Head Lighthouse in Hants County and the Lookout Tower in Economy and the Ottawa House Museum in Parrsboro in Cumberland County.

History

Settlement

The Mi’kmaq were the first people to inhabit the area around the Minas Basin. Mi’kmaq tradition ties the god Glooscap in with significant geographical features such as Cape Blomidon and Five Islands.

After being explored by the Europeans, the area was settled by the French and later by the British. The French, which late became the Acadians, had a particularly significant impact of the area in that they reclaimed considerable farmland through the use of dykes and aboiteaux. They founded in the area Grand-Pré, Les Mines, Pisiguit, Cobequid, Rivière-aux-Canards, and Beaubassin. Even today, their dyke systems, greatly expanded by later additions are still used near Truro and Wolfville at Port Williams and Grand Pré. In 1755, the British forcibly expelled the over 12,000 Acadians from Grand Pré, Pisiguit, Cobequid, and Beaubassin, in what became known as the Grand Dérangement, or Great Expulsion.

The vacant Acadian settlements around the Minas Basin were succeeded by the New England Planters who arrived in 1760 and were later joined by Loyalists settlers in the 1780s. The Planters rebuilt and expanded the Acadian dyke systems, reclaiming more farmland from the Basin through projects like the Wellington Dyke in 1816.

Industry

The communities around the Minas Basin were sustained by fishing, logging, farming, mining, boat building and shipbuilding. In the late 19th Century the Basin’s shipyards produced some of the highest numbers of wooden ships in Canadian history and some of the largest, including the ship William D. Lawrence, the largest wooden ship built in Canada along with the giant barques Kings County, Canada’s largest four masted-barque and Hamburg, Canada’s largest three-masted barque. The tidal water also provided a means of transporting commodities such as lumber, apples and gypsum and powered Tide mills at locations such as Canning, Hantsport and Walton.

Mining included gypsum (several locations including Windsor and Cheverie), iron (Londonderry), barite (near Walton and the Eureka Mine at Five Islands), manganese (several locations including Cheverie and Tennycape), and copper (the Colonial Copper Company at Cape d’Or). Gypsum was shipped from Hantsport until 2009.

Nature

Marine mammals include seals and porpoises. Fish include bass, and flounder; lobster, crab, mussel, and clam are common. Many types of seaweed, sponges, worms, seajellys and more are also found. Birds include sandpipers, terns (visitors only), eagles, falcons, seagulls, herons, and kingfishers.

Fossils are found near Parrsboro, Blue Beach and other areas along the Avon River.^[8] Rarely, fossils have been found at Evangeline Beach, Burntcoat Head, and other locations. These fossils include various shells (brachiopods, molluscs), sponges, trees, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and dinosaurs. Trace fossils include vertebrate footprints, fish fin-tracks, invertebrate trackways (ex. scorpions at Blue Beach), raindrop inprints, and wave ripples. They range from the beginning of the Carboniferous to the Jurassic. They were deposited when the region was warm and tropical, later when it was covered by a shallow sea, and later still when it was a desert.

Minerals include a variety zeolites from the basalt cliffs at Cape Split, the area around Parrsboro, Five Islands and Cap D’Or. These include Nova Scotia’s provincial mineral stilbite, as well as heulandite, analcime, chabazite, gmelinite, natrolite and thomsonite. Other minerals found in the basalts include calcite, magnetite, copper, and quartz (often as amethyst). Beautiful agate is also found. In the sedimentary rocks, gypsum is commonly found at Blomidon, Clarke Head, and near Windsor in both the colorless variety (selenite) and the fibrous variety (satin spar), the latter sometimes being bright orange. Other minerals from the sedimentary rocks include pyrite, calcite, barite, manganite, and pyrolusite. Small amounts of fluorite, celestite, howlite have also been found at Cheverie.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. 1539 – 9 September 1583) of Devon in England was a half-brother (through his mother) of Sir Walter Raleigh and cousin of Sir Richard Grenville. Adventurer, explorer, member of parliament, and soldier, he served during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and was a pioneer of the English colonial empire in North America and the Plantations of Ireland.

Early life

Gilbert was the fifth son born to Otho Gilbert of Compton and Greenway, also Galmpton, and Devon, by his marriage to Katherine Champernowne. His brothers Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert, and his half-brothers Carew Raleigh and Sir Walter Raleigh, were also prominent during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James. Katherine was a niece of Kat Ashley, Elizabeth’s governess, who introduced her young kinsmen to the court. Gilbert’s uncle, Sir Arthur Champernowne, involved him in efforts to establish plantations in Ireland between 1566 and 1572. Sir Henry Sidney became Gilbert’s mentor, and he was educated at Eton and the University of Oxford, where he learned to speak French and Spanish and studied the arts of war and navigation. He went on to reside at the Inns of Chancery in London in about 1560–1561.

Gilbert’s mottoes, Quid non? (“Why not?”) and Mutare vel timere sperno (“I scorn to change or to fear”), indicate how he chose to live his life. He was present at the siege of Newhaven in Havre-de-grâce (Le Havre), Normandy, where he was wounded in June 1563. By July 1566 he was serving in Ireland under the command of Sidney (then Lord Deputy) against Shane O’Neill, but was sent to England later in the year with dispatches for the Queen. (See Early Plantations (1556–1576) and Tudor conquest of Ireland). At that point he took the opportunity of presenting the Queen with his A discourse of a discouerie for a new passage to Cataia (A Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cathay) (published in revised form in 1576), treating of the exploration of a Northwest Passage by America to Asia. Within the year he had set down an account of his strange and turbulent visions, in which he received the homage of Solomon and Job, with their promise to grant him access to secret mystical knowledge.

Gilbert was described as ‘of higher stature than of the common sort, and of complexion cholerike’. Certain contemporaries speculated that he was a pederast.

Military career in Ireland

After the assassination of O’Neill in 1569, he was appointed to the profitless office of governor of Ulster and served as a member of the Irish parliament. At about this time he petitioned the Queen’s principal secretary, William Cecil, for a recall to England – “for the recovery of my eyes” – but his ambitions still rested in Ireland, and particularly in the southern province of Munster. In April 1569 he proposed the establishment of a presidency and council for the province, and pursued the notion of an extensive settlement around Baltimore (in modern County Cork), which was approved by the Dublin council. At the same time he was involved with Sidney and the secretary of state, Sir Thomas Smith, in planning a large settlement of the northern province of Ulster by Devonshire gentlemen.

Gilbert’s actions in the south of Ireland played a significant part in the outbreak of the first of the Desmond Rebellions. A kinsman of his, Sir Peter Carew (another Devonshire man), was pursuing a provocative, and somewhat far-fetched, claim to the inheritance of certain lands within the Butler territories in south Leinster. The Earl of Ormond – a bosom companion of the Queen’s from her troubled youth and head of the Butler family – was absent in England, and the clash of Butler influence with the lawful authority of Carew’s claim created havoc.

Gilbert was eager to participate and, after Carew’s seizure of the barony of Idrone (in modern County Carlow), he pushed westward with his forces across the River Blackwater in the summer of 1569 and joined up with his kinsman to defeat Sir Edmund Butler, a younger brother of the Earl’s. Violence spread in a confusion from Leinster and across the province of Munster, when the Geraldines of Desmond went into rebellion. Gilbert was then created colonel by Lord Deputy Sidney and charged with the pursuit of the rebel James FitzMaurice FitzGerald. The Geraldines were driven out of Kilmallock, but returned to lay siege to Gilbert, who drove off their superior force in a sally, during which his horse was shot from under him and his buckler transfixed with a spear. After that initial success, he showed courage in striking out into rebel territory, and managed to march unopposed through Kerry and Connello, taking 30–40 castles without the aid of artillery.

During the three weeks of this campaign, all enemies were treated without quarter and put to the sword – including women and children – which explains, perhaps, the swiftness with which so many castles had been abandoned before Gilbert’s aggression. A particularly gruesome spectacle was devised by him to cow the rebel supporters:

The heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies and brought to the place where he incamped at night, and should there bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie ledying into his owne tente so that none could come into his tente for any cause but commonly he muste passe through a lane of heddes which he used ad terrorem…[It brought] greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kindsfolke, and freinds…

John Perrot used a similar practice at Kilmallock a few years later. Gilbert is also said to have sent Captain Apsley into Kerry to inspire terror.

Gilbert’s attitude to the Irish may be captured in one quote from him, dated 13 November 1569: “These people are headstrong and if they feel the curb loosed but one link they will with bit in the teeth in one month run further out of the career of good order than they will be brought back in three months.”

In time, Ormond returned from England and called in his brothers, which caused the Geraldine resistance to weaken. In December 1569, after one of the chief rebels had come in to the government and confessed his treason, Gilbert received his knighthood at the hands of Sidney in the ruined Fitzmaurice camp, reputedly amid heaps of slain gallowglass warriors. Fitzmaurice stayed out in rebellion (only coming in to submit in 1573), and one month after Gilbert’s return to England he retook Kilmallock with 120-foot, defeating the garrison and sacking the town for three days, leaving it “the abode of wolves“.

Member of parliament and adventurer

In 1570 Gilbert returned to England, where he married Anne Aucher, who bore him six sons and one daughter. In 1571 he was elected to parliament as a member for Plymouth and in 1572 for Queenborough and controversially argued for the crown prerogative in the matter of royal licenses for purveyance. In business affairs, he involved himself in an alchemical project with Smith, whereby iron was to be transmuted into copper and antimony, and lead into mercury.

By 1572 Gilbert had turned his attention to the Netherlands, where he fought an unsuccessful campaign in support of the Dutch Sea beggars at the head of a force of 1500 men, many of whom had deserted from Smith’s aborted plantation in the Ards of Ulster. In the period 1572–1578 Gilbert settled down and devoted himself to writing. In 1573 he presented Elizabeth I with a proposal for an academy in London, which was eventually put into effect by Sir Thomas Gresham upon the establishment of Gresham College. Gilbert also helped to set up the Society of the New Art with Lord Burghley and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, both of whom maintained an alchemical laboratory in Limehouse.

The rest of Gilbert’s life was spent in a series of failed maritime expeditions, the financing of which exhausted his own fortune and a great part of his family’s. He backed Martin Frobisher’s trip to Greenland, which yielded a cargo of a mysterious yellow rock, subsequently found to be worthless. In pursuit of one of his own projects, he sailed from Plymouth for North America in November 1578 with 7 vessels in his fleet, which was scattered by storms and forced back to port some 6-months later; the only vessel to have penetrated the Atlantic to any great distance was the Falcon under Raleigh’s command.

In the summer of 1579, Gilbert and Raleigh were commissioned by the lord deputy of Ireland, William Drury, to attack his old foe, the rebel James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, by sea and land and to intercept a fleet expected to arrive from Spain with aid for the Munster rebels. At this time Gilbert had three vessels under his command: the Anne Ager (or perhaps, Anne Archer or Aucher – named after his wife) of 250 tons, the Relief, and the Squirrell of 10 tons. The latter vessel, a small frigate, was notable for having completed the voyage to America and back inside three months under the command of a captured Portuguese pilot.

In pursuit of his Irish commission, Gilbert set sail in June 1579 after a spell of bad weather, and promptly got lost in fog and heavy rains off Land’s End, an incident that caused the Queen to doubt his seafaring abilities. His fleet was then driven into the Bay of Biscay, and the Spanish soon sailed into Dingle harbour, where they made their rendezvous with the rebels. In October he managed to put into the port of Cobh in Munster, where he delivered a terrible beating to a local gentleman, smashing him about the head with a sword. He then fell into a row with a local merchant, whom he slew on the dockside.

Gilbert was one of the leading advocates for a north-west passage to the land of Cathay (present-day China), noted in great detail for its abundance of riches by Marco Polo in the 13th century. Gilbert made an elaborate case to counter the calls for a north-eastern route. During the winter of 1566 he and his principal antagonist Anthony Jenkinson (who had sailed to Russia and crossed the country down to the Caspian Sea), argued the pivotal question of polar routes before Queen Elizabeth. Gilbert claimed that any north-east passage was far too dangerous: “the air is so darkened with continual mists and fogs so near the pole that no man can well see either to guide his ship or direct his course.” By logic and reason a north-west passage must exist, and Columbus had discovered America with far less evidence; it was imperative for England to catch up, settle in new lands and thus challenge the Iberian powers. Gilbert’s contentions won support and money was raised, chiefly by the London merchant Michael Lok, for an expedition. The fearless Martin Frobisher was appointed captain and left England in June 1576, but the quest for a north-west passage proved fruitless: he returned with a cargo of black stone and an Inuit.

Newfoundland

It was assumed that Gilbert would be appointed President of Munster after the dismissal of Ormond as lord lieutenant of the province in the spring of 1581. At this time Gilbert was member of parliament for Queenborough, Kent, but his attention was again drawn to North America, where he hoped to seize territory on behalf of the crown.

The six-year exploration license Gilbert had secured by letters patent from the crown in 1578 was on the point of expiring, when he succeeded in 1583 in raising significant sums from English Catholic investors. The investors were constrained by penal laws in their own country, and loth to go into exile in hostile parts of Europe; thus, the prospect of an American adventure appealed to them, especially when Gilbert was proposing to seize some nine million acres (36,000 km²) around the river Norumbega, to be parcelled out under his authority (although to be held ultimately of the Crown).

The Catholic investment didn’t work out – partly because the Privy Council insisted that the investors pay their recusancy fines before departing, partly because of efforts by Catholic clergy and Spanish agents to dissuade their interference in America – but Gilbert did manage to set sail with a small fleet of five vessels in June 1583. One of the vessels – Bark Raleigh, owned and commanded by Raleigh himself – had to turn back owing to lack of victuals. Gilbert’s crews were made up of misfits, criminals and pirates, but in spite of the many problems caused by their lawlessness, the fleet did manage to reach Newfoundland.

On arriving at the port of St. John’s, Gilbert found himself temporarily blockaded by the fishing fleet under the organisation of the port admiral (an Englishman) on account of piracy committed against a Portuguese vessel in 1582 by one of Gilbert’s commanders. Once this resistance was overcome, Gilbert waved his letters patent about and, in a formal ceremony, took possession of Newfoundland (including the lands 200 leagues to the north and south) for the English crown on 5 August 1583. This involved the cutting of turf to symbolise the transfer of possession of the soil, according to the common law of England. The locals presented him with a gift of a local dog, whom he named Stella for the North Star. He claimed authority over the fish stations at St. John’s and proceeded to levy a tax on the fishermen from several countries who worked this popular area near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Within weeks his fleet departed, having made no attempt to form a settlement, due to lack of supplies. During the return voyage, Gilbert insisted on sailing in his hardy old favourite, HMS Squirrel. He soon ordered a controversial change of course for the fleet. Owing to his obstinacy and disregard of the views of superior mariners, the ship Delight ran aground and soon sank with the loss of all but sixteen of its crew on one of the sand bars of Sable Island. Delight was the largest remaining ship in the squadron (an unwise choice to take the lead in uncharted coastal waters) and contained most of the remaining supplies. Later in the voyage a sea monster was sighted, said to have resembled a lion with glaring eyes.

After discussions with Edward Hayes and William Cox, captain and master of Golden Hind, Gilbert had decided on 31 August to return. The wind was in their favour as they sped back to Cape Race in two days and were soon clear of land. Gilbert had injured his foot on the frigate Squirrel and, on 2 September, came aboard Golden Hind to have his foot bandaged and to discuss means of keeping the two little ships together on the voyage. Gilbert refused to leave Squirrel, while the vessels continued on the Atlantic crossing. After a strong storm, they had a spell of clear weather and made fair progress: Gilbert came aboard Golden Hind again, visited with Hayes, and insisted once more on returning to Squirrel, even though Hayes insisted she was over-gunned and unsafe for sailing. Nearly 900 miles away from Cape Race near the Azores, they encountered high waves of heavy seas, “breaking short and high Pyramid wise”, said Hayes.

On 9 September, Squirrel was nearly overwhelmed but recovered. Despite the persuasions of others, who wished him to take to one of the larger vessels, Gilbert stayed put and was observed sitting in the stern of his little frigate, reading a book. When Golden Hind came within hailing distance, the crew heard him cry out repeatedly, “We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!” as he lifted his palm to the skies to illustrate his point. At midnight the frigate’s lights were extinguished, and the watch on Golden Hind cried out that, “the Generall was cast away“. Squirrel had gone down with all hands.

It is thought Gilbert’s reading material was the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, which contains the following passage: “He that hathe no grave is covered with the skye: and, the way to heaven out of all places is of like length and distance.”

Legacy

• Gilbert was father to Ralegh Gilbert, who was to become second in command of Popham Colony. One of his later relatives was the architect C. P. H. Gilbert.
• Gilbert was part of a remarkable generation of Devonshire men, who combined the roles of adventurer, writer, soldier and mariner – often in ways as equally loathsome as admirable. AL Rowse wrote of him:

Gilbert was certainly an interesting psychological case, with the symptoms of disturbed personality that often go with men of mark, not at all the simple Elizabethan seaman of Froude’s Victorian view. He was passionate and impulsive, a nature liable to violence and cruelty – as came out in his savage repression of rebels in Ireland – but also intellectual and visionary, a questing and original mind, with the personal magnetism that went with it. People were apt to be both attracted and repelled by him, to follow his leadership and yet be mistrustful of him.

He was outstanding for his initiative and originality, if not for his successes, but it is in his efforts at colonisation that he had most influence. Ireland ended up as a brutal disaster (although Ulster and Munster were in time colonised), but the American adventure did eventually flourish. The formality of his annexation of Newfoundland eventually achieved reality in 1610; but perhaps of more significance was the reissue to Raleigh in 1584 of Gilbert’s patent, on the back of which he undertook the Roanoke expeditions, the first sustained attempt by the English crown to establish colonies in North America.

• Gilbert Sound near Greenland was named after him by John Davys.
• At Memorial University of Newfoundland, a court of the Burton’s Pond Apartments are named “Gilbert Court” in his honour.

 

Francis Pegahmagabow

Francis Pegahmagabow (March 9, 1891 – August 5, 1952) was the First Nations soldier most highly decorated for bravery in Canadian military history and the most effective sniper of World War I. Three times awarded the Military Medal and seriously wounded, he was an expert marksman and scout, credited with killing 378 Germans and capturing 300 more. Later in life, he served as chief and a councilor for the Wasauksing First Nation, and as an activist and leader in several First Nations organizations. He corresponded with and met other noted aboriginal figures including Fred Loft, Jules Sioui, Andrew Paull and John Tootoosis.

Early life

Francis Pegahmagabow was born on what is now the Shawanaga First Nation reserve. His father was Michael Pegahmagabow of the Parry Island First Nation and his mother Mary Contin of the Henvey Inlet First Nation, located further up the Georgian Bay’s north shore. An Ojibwa he grew up at the Parry Island (Wasauksing) Band, near Parry Sound, Ontario. He was orphaned at an early age and was raised by the Shawanaga First Nation community. Prior to the war, Pegahmagabow worked as a marine fireman for the Department of Marine and Fisheries on the Great Lakes.

Military career

Following the outbreak of World War I, Pegahmagabow volunteered for service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in August 1914 and was posted to the 23rd Canadian Regiment (Northern Pioneers). After joining the Canadian force he was based at CFB Valcartier. While there he decorated his army tent with traditional symbols including a deer, the symbol of his clan. In February, 1915, he was deployed overseas with the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion of the 1st Canadian Division—the first contingent of Canadian troops sent to fight in Europe.

Shortly after his arrival on the continent, Pegahmagabow saw action during the Second Battle of Ypres, where the Germans used chlorine gas for the first time on the Western Front, and it was during this battle that he began to establish a reputation as a sniper and scout. Later, his battalion took part in the Battle of the Somme and it was during this battle that Pegahmagabow was wounded in the left leg. He recovered in time, however, to return to the 1st Battalion as they moved to Belgium. Over the course of these two battles which spanned almost a year, Pegahmagabow carried messages along the lines, and it was for these efforts that he received the Military Medal. Initially, his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Albert Creighton, had nominated him from the Distinguished Conduct Medal, citing the disregard he showed for danger and his “faithfulness to duty”, however, it was later downgraded.

On November 6/7, 1917, Pegahmagabow earned a bar to his Military Medal for his actions in the Second Battle of Passchendaele. During the fighting there Pegahmagabow’s battalion was given the task of launching an attack at Passchendaele. By this time, he had been promoted to the rank of corporal and during the battle he was recorded playing an important role as a link between the units on the 1st Battalion’s flank. When the battalion’s reinforcements became lost, Pegahmagabow was instrumental in guiding them to where they needed to go and ensuring that they reached their allocated spot in the line.

Later in the war, on August 30, 1918, during the Battle of the Scarpe, Pegahmagabow was involved in fighting off a German attack at Orix Trench, near Upton Wood. His company was almost out of ammunition and in danger of being surrounded. In an effort to prevent a disaster he took it upon himself to bring up the necessary supplies. Braving heavy machine gun and rifle fire he went out into no-man’s land and brought back enough ammunition to enable his post to carry on and assist in repulsing heavy enemy counter-attacks. For these efforts he received a second bar to his Military Medal, becoming one of only 38 Canadians to receive this honour.

In November 1918, the war came to an end and in 1919 Pegahmagabow was invalided back to Canada. He had served in the military for almost the whole war, and had built up a reputation as a skilled marksman. Using the much-maligned Ross rifle, he was credited with killing 378 Germans and capturing 300 more.

Awards

1. He was first awarded the Military Medal while fighting at the second battle of Ypres, Festubert and Givenchy, for courage under fire in getting important messages through to the rear.
2. Earned his first bar to the Military Medal at the bloody Battle of Passchendaele.
3. His second bar to the Military Medal came at the battle of The Scarpe, in 1918. Only 37 other Canadian men received the honour of two bars.

In 2003 the Pegahmagabow family donated his medals, and chief head dress to the Canadian War Museum where they can be seen as of 2010 as part of the World War I display.

Controversy

While writing his 2005 novel Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden undertook a considerable amount of research on Pegahmagabow. When interviewed by Herb Wylie, Boyden was asked about why he thought that Pegahmagabow had not received a higher award like the Distinguished Conduct Medal or the Victoria Cross. In response, Boyden speculated that it might have been due to Pegahmagabow being a First Nation soldier. He also stated that there may have been some jealousy on the part of some officers who he felt might have been suspicious of the number of Germans Pegahmagabow claimed to have shot because he did not use an observer while sniping.

Political life

Upon his return to Canada he continued to serve in the Algonquin Regiment militia as a non-permanent active member. Following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, he was elected chief of the Parry Island Band from February 1921. Once in office he caused a schism in the band after he wrote a letter calling for certain individuals and those of mixed race to be expelled from the reserve. He was re-elected in 1924 and served until he was deposed via an internal power struggle in April 1925. Before the motion could go through, Pegahmagabow resigned. A decade later, he was appointed councillor from 1933 to 1936. In 1933 the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) changed its policies and forbade First Nation chiefs from corresponding with the DIA. They directed that all correspondence, as of the spring of 1933, go through the Indian Agent. This gave huge power to the Agent, something that grated on Pegahmagabow, who did not get along with his Indian Agent, John Daly. First Nation members who served in the army during World War I were particularly active as political activists. They had travelled the world, earned the respect of the comrades in the trenches, and refused to be sidelined by the newly empowered Indian Agent. Historian Paul Williams termed these advocates as “returned soldier chiefs”, and singled out a few, including Pegahmagabow, as being especially active. This caused intense disagreements with Daly and eventually led to Pegahmagabow being deposed as chief. Daly and other agents who came in contact with Pegahmagabow were incredibly frustrated by his attempts, in his words, to free his people from “white slavery.” The Indian agents labelled him as a “mental case” and strived to sideline him and his supporters.

In addition to the power struggle between the Indian council and the DIA that Pegahmagabow took issue with, he was a constant agitator over the islands in Georgian Bay of the Lake Huron. The Regional First Nation governments claimed the islands as their own and Pegahmagabow and other chiefs tried in vain to get recognition of their status.

During World War II he worked as a guard at a munitions plant near Nobel, Ontario while being a Sergeant-Major in the local militia. In 1943, he became the Supreme Chief of The Native Independent Government, an early First Nations organization.

Family and legacy

A married father of six children, Francis Pegahmagabow died on the Parry Island reserve in 1952 at the age of 61. He is a member of the Indian Hall of Fame at the Woodland Centre in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his memory is also commemorated on a plaque honouring him and his regiment on the Rotary and Algonquin Regiment Fitness Trail in Parry Sound. Most recently honoured by the Canadian Forces by naming the 3rd Canadian Ranger Patrol Group HQ Building at CFB Borden after him.

 

John Alexander Douglas McCurdy

John Alexander Douglas McCurdy (August 2, 1886 – June 25, 1961) was a Canadian aviation pioneer and the 20th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia from 1947 to 1952.

Early years

Born in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, McCurdy was known as “Douglas”. He was schooled at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario and graduated from the University of Toronto in mechanical engineering in 1906, where he had been a member of The Kappa Alpha Society along with his friend Frederick W. Baldwin.

Aviation

In 1907, he joined Alexander Graham Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association. In 1908, McCurdy helped another AEA member, Glenn Curtiss to set up the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company.

After co-developer Frederick W. Baldwin first flew in 1908, on February 23, 1909, McCurdy became the first British subject to fly an aircraft in the British Empire when he piloted the Aerial Experiment Association’s Silver Dart off the ice of Bras d’Or Lake in Nova Scotia. The Silver Dart was the first powered aircraft to fly in Canada. In 1910, he was the first Canadian to be issued a pilot’s license and the following year, he made the first flight from Florida to Cuba. For the next few years, he continued to set aviation records in Canada and North America, until 1916, when vision problems grounded him.

First World War

In 1915, McCurdy established the first aviation school in Canada, the Curtiss Flying School, operating from 1915 to 1919. and was the first manager of Long Branch Aerodrome, Canada’s first airport. He was also instrumental in setting up the Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd., an aircraft manufacturing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that built aircraft for the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Formed on December 15, 1916, when the Imperial Munitions Board bought the Curtiss (Canada) aircraft operation in Toronto (opened in 1916 as Toronto Curtiss Aeroplanes), Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd. manufactured the JN-4 (Can) Canuck, the Felixstowe F5L flying boat, and the Avro 504.

Inter-war years

In 1928, McCurdy created the Reid Aircraft Company in Montreal and became its first president. After a merger, he remained at the helm of the Curtiss-Reid Aircraft Company, a position he held until the advent of war. The most notable product of the company was the Curtiss-Reid Rambler.

McCurdy married Margaret Ball of Woodstock, Ontario, daughter of Margaret and Robert N. Ball, Queens Counsel for Sullivan Co, Ontario.

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War, McCurdy became Assistant Director General of Aircraft Production. He remained in that position until 1947.

Postwar

In 1947, McCurdy was appointed lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, a post he continued until 1952. He was awarded the McKee Trophy in 1959 on the 50th anniversary of the flight of the Silver Dart. He attended official ceremonies and sat in the replica Silver Dart built for the occasion. He was also named an honorary air commodore at the time.

After a lengthy illness, McCurdy died in 1961 in Montreal, Quebec, and was buried the following month in Baddeck, where a family home had been maintained.

Legacy

The McCurdy Award at McGill University in Montreal was introduced in 1954 by the Institute of Aircraft Technicians. The award commemorates the contributions made by John A.D. McCurdy during the development of the aviation industry in North America. Following its creation in 1973, McCurdy was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame.

On July 27, 2009 Sydney Airport was renamed J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport in his honour. In 2012, he was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame.

 

Lucille Teasdale-Corti

Lucille Teasdale-Corti, (January 30, 1929 – August 1, 1996) was a Canadian physician, surgeon and international aid worker, who worked in Uganda and contributed to the development of medical services in the country.

Early life in Canada

Born in Montreal East, Quebec on 30 January 1929, Lucille Teasdale was the fourth of seven children. Her father René ran a grocery store in Avenue Guybourg, Saint-Léonard, Montreal.

She was educated as a boarder at Collège Jésus-Marie d’Outrement, a select Catholic college by nuns whose methods she thought to be very strict. A visit to the college by some nuns who had worked as missionaries in China acted as a catalyst for her, then aged 12, to consider becoming a doctor, this coming on top of voluntary work which she had done in a clinic serving the disadvantaged people of the Plateau Mont-Royal from which she had gained a conviction that the worst injustic was disease and that she could do something about it.

She won a scholarship to attend medical school at the University of Montreal, starting in 1950. Females were not common in the medical profession at that time and her class of 110 students included only eight women. She graduated in 1955, becoming one of the first female surgeons in Quebec, and took work at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine, Montreal.

It was at this time, while working in the pediatric department, that she first met the Italian doctor, Piero Corti. He was working at the hospital to obtain a specialist qualification in pediatrics, to add to those in radiology and neuropsychiatry which he already had. Corti showed an interest in her but Teasdale was concentrating on her job, working up to 16 hours a day and sometimes fainting in the operating theater as a consequence.

A condition of completing her postgraduate training was that she must agree to work for a period of time in a hospital abroad. Teasdale tried to obtain work in the USA but was turned down by 20 hospitals. She later said that this was “probably because I was a woman”.

France and Uganda

In September 1960 Lucille traveled to France to work at l’Hôpital de la Conception in Marseille, and, although she lacked confidence in her own abilities she was nonetheless highly regarded by staff members there. She had been unhappy with the Canadian health-care system which, to her, appeared to be an immoral one because it had both private and public sectors, and patients in the private sector obtained better treatment. She thought indeed that medicine was so interesting that doctors should pay for the honor of practicing it.

It was while working in Marseilles that Corti approached her: he needed a surgeon at a small clinic which had been established in Uganda and to which he had recently been invited and had hopes of turning into a hospital. The clinic was located in a small village of the Acoli tribe, 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) from Gulu. It was run by a staff of six Combonian nuns and consisted of an outpatient unit and around 40 maternity beds. She agreed to go with Corti, initially for a period of two months, and arrived in May 1961. On 10 June 1961 she performed her first operation, on a makeshift table, and thereafter spent mornings treating outpatients and afternoons in theater.

Facilities improved as Corti spent his time soliciting donations from abroad. The clinic was renamed Lacor Hospital, after the nearby town, and Teasdale returned to France after extending her stay from two months to four.

She returned in December 1961, finding herself unable to be separated from Corti. They were married in the hospital chapel on 5 December and on 17 November 1962 she gave birth to their daughter Dominique. At this time Teasdale was seeing around 300 outpatients each morning and then performing operations in the afternoon, in conditions which were poor due to, amongst other things, a fluctuating supply of electricity, shortage of suitable medication and the poor quality of the water supplied.

She also spent time educating Acoli mothers who were uninformed about medical science and were utilising the traditional practice of ebino, the extraction of infants’ canine tooth buds, which supposedly cures disease, but in fact often causes bacterial infections.

Uganda, a British protectorate, gained independence on 9 October 1962. Years of civil unrest and then outright civil war followed, involving the supporters of the dictators Amin Dada (1971–1978), Milton Obote (1979–1985) and the Lord’s Resistance Army (1986–2006), as well as an invasion by Tanzanian troops. By the end of Amin’s period in power there had been an estimated 300,000 victims. The hospital received its share of the wounded and the dying, causing Teasdale-Corti to become a war surgeon and increasing her workload further. The hospital not merely dealt with the casualties but also suffered from looting and the kidnap of staff members. During this time Teasdale continued to expand her abilities and expertise and, in 1979, performed her first bone graft, this being on a wounded soldier in an attempt to avoid the alternative of amputation.

In 1972 she and her husband established a school of nursing at the hospital to train local people; from 1982 she ran a program at Makerere University, Kampala for the training of surgical residents and also arranged the work preparation of Italian doctors intending to work in Africa.

Illness

Teasdale-Corti had prided herself on her stamina, working extremely long hours in difficult circumstances. When her health began to deteriorate and her ability to sustain a heavy workload was consequently reduced, she sought medical advice for herself. The diagnosis, which is variously said to have been made in Italy and by Anthony Pinching (an immunologist) in London, was that she was suffering from AIDS, probably as a consequence of operating on a victim of the civil war.

She suffered the consequences of the illness for a further eleven years, with trips to San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in order to receive treatment for herself. She died on 1 August 1996, weighing 33 kg, in Besana in Brianza, Italy, to which she had recently moved in search of treatment for herself. A copy of what is believed to be her last letter exists and describes the situation of both the hospital and herself at the time. Her body was returned to Uganda and interred in the grounds of the hospital. A few months after her death Corti had his fourth heart attack; and he eventually died seven years later, of pancreatic cancer. He had continued working at the hospital, had conducted research into AIDS with Dr J W Carswell, and was buried next to his wife.

In 1993, three years before her death she and her husband had established the Lucille Teasdale and Piero Corti Foundation in Montreal, followed two years later by a similar body based in Milan. These were intended to ensure the continued existence of the hospital. By that time she had performed more than 13,000 operations and the hospital had grown to have 465 beds and departments covering numerous specialities. As at 2011 Dominique, the couple’s daughter and herself a doctor of medicine, continues to run the Foundations.

A TV movie of the story was made in 2000.

 

Northeast Coast Campaign (1745)

Brigadier_General_Samuel_Waldo

The Northeast Coast Campaign (1745) occurred during King George’s War from 19 July until 5 September 1745. Three weeks after the British Siege of Louisbourg (1745), the Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia retaliated by attacking New England settlements along the coast of present-day Maine below the Kennebec River, the former border of Acadia. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Berwick and St. Georges (Thomaston, Maine), within two months there were 11 raids – every town on the frontier had been attacked. Casco (also known as Falmouth and Portland) was the principal settlement.

Background

After the two attacks on Annapolis Royal in 1744, Governor William Shirley put a bounty on the Passamaquoddy, Mi’kmaq and Maliseet on Oct 20. The following year, during the Campaign, on August 23, 1745, Shirley declared war against the rest of the Wabanaki Confederacy – the Penobscot and Kennebec tribes. In response to the New England expedition against Louisbourg which finished in June 1745, the Wabanaki retaliated by attacking the New England border. New England braced itself for such an attack by appointing a provisional force of 450 to defend the frontier. After the attacks began they increased the number of soldiers by 175 men. Massachusetts established forts along the border with Acadia: Fort George at Brunswick (1715), St. George’s Fort at Thomaston (1720), and Fort Richmond (1721) at Richmond. Fort Frederick was established at Pemaquid (Bristol, Maine).

The campaign

The Campaign began when, on July 19, Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia, Maliseet and some from St. Francois attacked Fort St.George (Thomaston) and New Castle. They set fire to numerous buildings; killed cattle and took one villager captive. They also killed a person at Saco. At the same time, Penobscot and Norridgewock attacked Fort Frederick at Pemaquid. They took captive a woman, which alarmed the garrison but she escaped. The same month they killed a boy at Topsham and a man at New Meadows. In the same month, 30 Wabanaki attacked North Yarmouth and killed a man. At Flying-point they killed three members of a family and taking a daughter prisoner to Canada. During this raid on Flying-point, they also killed one man, made another prisoner, while another escaped. St. Georges garrison at Thomaston was attacked again and one company of men was killed, while three other men were taken captive. Near the garrison, two women were captured: one was taken to Canada, while the other escaped. They attacked Scarborough and one man killed. Then at Sheepscot they attacked and killed two and wounded one. On Sept 5 tribes of the Confederacy attacked Thomston (St. Georges) for the third time, killing and scalping two people.

Aftermath

In response to these events, Shirley sent more troops and munitions to the Maine frontier over the winter, anticipating the Wabanaki Campaign in the spring of 1746. There were nine raids in the Campaign of 1746 and 12 raids in the Northeast Coast Campaign of 1747.

 

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (October 6, 1866 – July 22, 1932) was a Canadian inventor who performed pioneering experiments in radio, including the use of continuous waves and the early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music. In his later career he received hundreds of patents for devices in fields such as high-powered transmitting, sonar, and television.

Early years

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was born October 6, 1866, in East-Bolton, Quebec, the eldest of the Reverend Elisha Joseph Fessenden and Clementina Trenholme. Elisha Fessenden was a minister of the Church of England in Canada, and through the years the family moved to a number of postings within the Province of Ontario.

While growing up, Reginald was an accomplished student. In 1877, at the age of eleven, he attended Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario for two years. At the age of fourteen, Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville, Quebec granted Fessenden a mathematics mastership. At this time, Bishop’s College School was a feeder school of Bishop’s University and shared the same campus and buildings. In June 1878, the school had an enrollment of only 43 boys. Thus, while Fessenden was only a teenager, he was teaching mathematics to the young children at the school while simultaneously studying with the older students at Bishop’s University. Total enrollment at the university for the school year 1883-84 was twenty-five students. At the age of eighteen, Fessenden left Bishop’s without having been awarded a degree, even though he had “done substantially all the work necessary.” (This lack of a degree may have hurt Fessenden’s employment opportunities; when McGill University established an electrical engineering department, Fessenden was turned down on an application to be the chairman, in favor of an American.)

The next two years he worked as the principal, and sole teacher, at the Whitney Institute in Bermuda. While there, he became engaged to Helen Trott of Bermuda. They married in September 1890 and later had a son-Reginald Kennelly Fessenden.

Early work

Fessenden’s classical education provided him with only a limited amount of scientific and technical training. Interested in increasing his skills in the electrical field, he moved to New York City in 1886, with hopes of gaining employment with the famous inventor, Thomas Edison. As recounted in his 1925 Radio News autobiography, his initial attempts were rebuffed; in his first application Fessenden wrote, “Do not know anything about electricity, but can learn pretty quick,” to which Edison replied, “Have enough men now who do not know about electricity.” However, Fessenden persevered, and before the end of the year he was hired for a semi-skilled position as an assistant tester for the Edison Machine Works, which was laying underground electrical mains in New York City. He quickly proved his worth, and received a series of promotions, with increasing responsibility for the project. In late 1886, Fessenden began working directly for Thomas Edison at the inventor’s new laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. A broad range of projects included work in solving problems in chemistry, metallurgy, and electricity. However, in 1890, facing financial problems, Edison was forced to lay off most of the laboratory employees, including Fessenden.

Taking advantage of his recent practical experience, Fessenden was able to find positions with a series of manufacturing companies. Next, in 1892, he received an appointment as professor for the newly formed Electrical Engineering department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana; while there he helped the Westinghouse Corporation install the lighting for the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Shortly thereafter in the same year, George Westinghouse personally recruited Fessenden for the newly created position of chair of the Electrical Engineering department at the Western University of Pennsylvania, renamed to the University of Pittsburgh in 1908. Fessenden began experimenting with wireless telephones in 1898; by 1899 he had a wireless communication system functioning between Pittsburgh and Allegheny City.

Radio work

In the late 1890s, reports began to appear about the success Guglielmo Marconi was having in developing a practical radio transmitting and receiving system. Fessenden began limited radio experimentation, and soon came to the conclusion that he could develop a far more efficient system than the spark-gap transmitter and coherer-receiver combination which had been championed by Oliver Lodge and Marconi.

Weather Bureau contract and the first audio radio transmission

In 1900 Fessenden left the University of Pittsburgh to work for the United States Weather Bureau, with the objective of proving the practicality of using a network of coastal radio stations to transmit weather information, thus avoiding the need to use the existing telegraph lines. The contract gave the Weather Bureau access to any devices Fessenden invented, but he would retain ownership of his inventions. The contract promised Fessenden $3,000 per year for his work. They also promised to give him work space, assistance, and housing. Fessenden quickly made major advances, especially in receiver design, as he worked to develop audio reception of signals. His initial success came from a barretter detector, which was followed by the electrolytic detector that consisted of a fine wire dipped in nitric acid, and for the next few years this later device would set the standard for sensitivity in radio reception. As his work progressed, Fessenden also evolved the heterodyne principle, which combined two signals to produce a third audible tone. However, heterodyne reception was not fully practical for a decade after it was invented, since it required a means for producing a stable local signal, which awaited the development of the oscillating vacuum-tube.

The initial work took place at Rock Point, Maryland, located about 80 kilometers (50 mi) downstream from Washington, DC. While there, Fessenden, experimenting with a high-frequency spark transmitter, successfully transmitted speech on December 23, 1900 over a distance of about 1.6 kilometers (one mile), which appears to have been the first audio radio transmission. At this time the sound quality was too distorted to be commercially practical, but as a test this did show that with further technical refinements it would become possible to transmit audio using radio signals.

As the experimentation expanded, additional stations were built along the Atlantic Coast in both North Carolina and Virginia. However, in the midst of promising advances, Fessenden became embroiled in disputes with his sponsor. In particular, he charged that Bureau Chief Willis Moore had attempted to gain a half-share of the patents. Fessenden refused to sign over the rights, and his work for the Weather Bureau ended in August, 1902. This incident recalled F. O. J. Smith, a member of the House of Representatives from Maine, who had managed to gain a one-quarter interest in the Morse telegraph.

Formation of NESCO

At that point, two wealthy Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania businessmen, Hay Walker, Jr., and Thomas H. Given, financed the formation of National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO) to carry on Fessenden’s research. This included the development of both a high-power rotary-spark transmitter for long-distance radiotelegraph service, and a lower-powered continuous-wave alternator-transmitter, which could be used for both telegraphic and audio transmissions. Brant Rock, Massachusetts became the center of operations for the new company.

Fessenden felt that, ultimately, a continuous-wave transmitter — one that produced a pure sine-wave signal on a single frequency — would be far more efficient, particularly because it could be used for quality audio transmissions. Fessenden contracted with General Electric to help design and produce a series of high-frequency alternator-transmitters. This was a radical idea at the time. The only known technology for producing radio waves was the electric spark, and experts believed that sparks were necessary to produce radio frequencies. Fessenden was ridiculed; as late as 1906 John Ambrose Fleming wrote “…it is doubtful if any appreciable radiation would result if such a machine were available and used as Fessenden proposes.”

Rotary-spark transmitter and the first two-way transatlantic transmission

It was decided to try to establish a transatlantic radiotelegraph service, and, in January, 1906, employing his rotary-spark transmitters, Fessenden made the first successful two-way transatlantic transmission, exchanging Morse code messages between a station constructed at Brant Rock and an identical one built at Machrihanish, Scotland. (Marconi had only achieved one-way transmissions at this time.) However, the transmitters could not bridge this distance during daylight hours or in the summer, so work was suspended until later in the year. Then, on December 6, 1906, “owing to the carelessness of one of the contractors employed in shifting some of the supporting cables,” the Machrihanish radio tower collapsed, abruptly ending the transatlantic work before it could ever go into commercial service.

Alternator-transmitter and the first audio radio broadcast

The development of a rotary-spark transmitter was something of a stop-gap measure, to be used until a superior approach could be perfected. Fessenden felt that, ultimately, a continuous-wave transmitter — one that produced a pure sine wave signal on a single frequency — would be far more efficient, particularly because it could be used for quality audio transmissions. His design idea was to take a basic electrical alternator, which normally operated at speeds that produced alternating current of at most a few hundred hertz, and greatly speed it up in order to create electrical currents at tens of kilohertz. Thus, the high-speed alternator would produce a steady radio signal when connected to an aerial. Then, by adding a simple carbon microphone in the transmission line, the strength of the signal could be varied in order to add sounds to the transmission. In other words, amplitude modulation would be used to impress audio on the radio frequency carrier wave. However, it would take many years of expensive development before even a prototype alternator-transmitter would be ready and a few more years beyond that for high-power versions to become available.

Fessenden contracted with General Electric to help design and produce a series of high-frequency alternator-transmitters. In 1903, Charles Proteus Steinmetz of GE delivered a 10 kHz version which proved of limited use and could not be directly used as a radio transmitter. Fessenden’s request for a faster, more powerful unit was assigned to Ernst F. W. Alexanderson, and in August 1906 he delivered an improved model which operated at a transmitting frequency of approximately 50 kHz, although with far less power than Fessenden’s rotary-spark transmitters.

The alternator-transmitter achieved the goal of transmitting quality audio signals, but the lack of any way to amplify the signals meant they were somewhat weak. On December 21, 1906, Fessenden made an extensive demonstration of the new alternator-transmitter at Brant Rock, showing its utility for point-to-point wireless telephony, including interconnecting his stations to the wire telephone network. A detailed review of this demonstration appeared in The American Telephone Journal.

A few days later, two additional demonstrations took place, which may have been the first audio radio broadcasts of entertainment and music ever made to a general audience. (Beginning in 1904, the U.S. Navy had broadcast daily time signals and weather reports, but these employed spark transmitters, transmitting in Morse code). On the evening of December 24, 1906 (Christmas Eve), Fessenden used the alternator-transmitter to send out a short program from Brant Rock. It included a phonograph record of Ombra mai fu (Largo) by George Frideric Handel, followed by Fessenden himself playing on the violin Adolphe Adam’s carol O Holy Night, singing Gounod’s Adore and be Still, and finishing with reading a passage from the Bible: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will’ (Gospel of Luke 2:14). He petitioned his listeners to write in about the quality of the broadcast as well as their location when they heard it. Surprisingly, his broadcast was heard several hundred miles away; however, accompanying the broadcast was a disturbing noise. This noise was due to irregularities in the spark gap transmitter he used.

On December 31, New Year’s Eve, a second short program was broadcast. The main audience for both these transmissions was an unknown number of shipboard radio operators along the East Coast of the United States. Fessenden claimed that the Christmas Eve broadcast had been heard “as far down” as Norfolk, Virginia, while the New Year Eve’s broadcast had reached places in the Caribbean. Although now seen as a landmark, these two broadcasts were barely noticed at the time and soon forgotten; the only first-hand account appears to be a letter Fessenden wrote on January 29, 1932 to his former associate, Samuel M. Kinter. There are no known accounts in any ships’ radio logs, nor any contemporary literature, of the reported holiday demonstrations.

(Broadcasting historian James E. O’Neal, in a series of articles on the Radio World website, suggests that Fessenden, writing a quarter-century after the fact, may have confused the dates; O’Neal suggests Fessenden was remembering instead a series of tests he’d conducted in 1909.)

There is solid historical evidence, however, that Fessenden’s demonstrations of “wireless telephony” were well known at the time. Documentation of Fessenden’s demonstration of radio-transmitted voice is provided by a New York Times article, dated Sunday, September 1, 1907, titled: “Telephoning at Sea”, which noted “The hertzian waves will penetrate opaque substances, and the amplitude and intensity of the waves may be so varied as to reproduce faithfully the vibrations of the human voice.” The same article further states that: “recently, the Fessenden wireless system demonstrated the practicability of transmitting spoken words from a tall mast at Brant Rock to Plymouth, twelve miles away.” Intense competition among developers of wireless technology, and the expectation of possible government contracts may have limited the scope of public promotion of the apparatus features and capabilities.

Fessenden’s broadcast foreshadowed of the future of radio. (Although primarily designed for transmissions spanning a few kilometers, on a couple of occasions the test Brant Rock audio transmissions were apparently overheard by NESCO employee James C. Armor across the Atlantic at the Machrihanish site).

Continuing work and dismissal from NESCO

The technical achievements made by Fessenden were not matched by financial success. Walker and Given had hoped to sell NESCO to a larger company such as the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, but were unable to find a buyer. Fessenden’s formation of the Fessenden Wireless Company of Canada in Montreal in 1906 may have led to suspicion that he was trying to freeze Walker and Given out of a potentially lucrative competing transatlantic service. There were growing strains between Fessenden and the company owners, and finally Fessenden was dismissed from NESCO in January 1911. He in turn brought suit against NESCO for breach of contract. Fessenden won the initial court trial and was awarded damages; however, NESCO prevailed on appeal. To conserve assets, NESCO went into receivership in 1912, and Samuel Kintner was appointed general manager of the company. The legal stalemate would continue for over 15 years. In 1917, NESCO finally emerged from receivership, and was soon renamed the International Radio Telegraph Company. The company was sold to Westinghouse in 1920, and the next year its assets, including numerous important Fessenden patents, were sold to the Radio Corporation of America, which also inherited the Fessenden legal proceedings. Finally, on March 1, 1928, Fessenden settled his outstanding lawsuits with RCA, receiving a large cash payment.

Ongoing influence

After Fessenden left NESCO, Alexanderson continued to work on alternator-transmitter development at GE, mostly for long range radiotelegraph use. It took many years, but he eventually developed the high-powered Alexanderson alternator capable of transmitting across the Atlantic, and by 1916 the Fessenden-Alexanderson alternator was more reliable for transatlantic communication than spark apparatus. Also, after 1920, audio radio broadcasting became widespread, using vacuum-tube transmitters rather than the alternator, but employing the continuous-wave AM signals that Fessenden had helped introduce in 1906. In 1921, the Institute of Radio Engineers presented Fessenden with its IRE Medal of Honor, and the next year the Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia awarded him a John Scott Medal and a cash prize of $800 for “his invention of a reception scheme for continuous wave telegraphy and telephony,” and recognized him as “One whose labors had been of great benefit.” Fessenden’s first radio broadcast in 1906 is recognized as an IEEE Milestone.

His legacy to radio includes three of his most notable achievements: the first audio transmission by radio (1900), the first two-way transatlantic radio transmission (1906), and the first radio broadcast of entertainment and music (1906).

Later years

Although Fessenden ceased radio activities after his dismissal from NESCO in 1911, he continued to work in other fields. As early as 1904 he had helped engineer the Niagara Falls power plant for the newly formed Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. However, his most extensive work was in developing a type of sonar system, the so-called Fessenden oscillator, for submarines to signal each other, as well as a method for locating icebergs, to help avoid another disaster like the one that sank Titanic. At the outbreak of World War I, Fessenden volunteered his services to the Canadian government and was sent to London, England where he developed a device to detect enemy artillery and another to locate enemy submarines.

An inveterate tinkerer, Fessenden eventually became the holder of more than 500 patents. He could often be found in a river or lake, floating on his back, a cigar sticking out of his mouth and a hat pulled down over his eyes. At home he liked to lie on the carpet, a cat on his chest. In this state of relaxation, Fessenden could imagine, invent and think his way to new ideas, including a version of microfilm, that helped him to keep a compact record of his inventions, projects and patents. He patented the basic ideas leading to reflection seismology, a technique important for its use in exploring for petroleum. In 1915 he invented the fathometer, a sonar device used to determine the depth of water for a submerged object by means of sound waves, for which he won Scientific American’s Gold Medal in 1929. Fessenden also received patents for tracer bullets, paging, television apparatus, turbo electric drive for ships, and more.

Death and afterwards

After settling his lawsuit with RCA, Fessenden purchased a small estate called “Wistowe” in Bermuda. He died there in 1932 and was interred in the cemetery of St. Mark’s Church on the island. An editorial in the New York Herald Tribune said:

It sometimes happens, even in science, that one man can be right against the world. Professor Fessenden was that man. He fought bitterly and alone to prove his theories. It was he who insisted, against the stormy protests of every recognized authority, that what we now call radio was worked by continuous waves sent through the ether by the transmitting station as light waves are sent out by a flame. Marconi and others insisted that what was happening was a whiplash effect. The progress of radio was retarded a decade by this error. The whiplash theory passed gradually from the minds of men and was replaced by the continuous wave, with all too little credit to the man who had been right.

Reginald A. Fessenden House

Fessenden’s home at 45 Waban Hill Road in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts is on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a U.S. National Historic Landmark. He bought the house in 1906 or earlier and owned it for the rest of his life.

 

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (November 17, 1685 – December 5, 1749) was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader and explorer. In the 1730s he and his four sons opened up the area west of Lake Superior and thus began the process that added Western Canada to the original New France in the Saint Lawrence basin. He was also the first European to reach North Dakota and the upper Missouri River. In the 1740s two of his sons crossed the prairie as far as Wyoming and were the first Europeans to see the Rocky Mountains north of New Mexico.

Early life

Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Pierre was the youngest son of René Gaultier de Varennes, who came to Canada as a soldier in 1665, and Marie, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, the first Governor of Trois-Rivières. The Gaultier family were minor nobility or landowners and came from the Anjou area of France. Varennes and La Vérendrye were two of their estates.

Pierre’s father died when he was six and he was educated at the Jesuit seminary in Quebec. At the age of 14 he received a cadet’s commission in the colonial regulars. In 1704 and 1705 he took part in Queen Anne’s War and was present at the Raid on Deerfield. This involved a 300-mile journey through the wilderness to attack the inhabitants of a sleeping village. The next year he participated in an unsuccessful attack on Saint Johns, Newfoundland.

At 22 years of age, he enlisted in the French Army, fought in Flanders during the War of the Spanish Succession and was seriously wounded at the Battle of Malplaquet. After recovering from his injuries and being paroled as a prisoner of war, Gaultier returned to Canada and married in 1712. For the next 15 years he supported his family by farming and fur-trading along the Saint Lawrence.

Explorations

In 1726 his fortunes changed when his brother Jacques-René was appointed commander of the poste du Nord. This was the north shore of Lake Superior with three main posts: Fort Kaministiquia which became the start of the main route west; a post at the mouth of the Nipigon River and one near Wawa, Ontario which had river connections to James Bay. Pierre began trading in the area and in 1728 became commandant when his brother left to fight the Fox Indians. Here he became involved with the quest for a route to the Pacific. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht had given Hudson Bay to the English and thereby blocked the French from any possible northwest passage. At this time it was thought that not far to the west was an inlet from the Pacific called the mer du couchant similar to the equally mythical Strait of Annian. Further it was thought that one could cross the height of land and find a River of the West that flowed into the Pacific. (For the area to be explored see Early Canadian canoe routes, Nelson River Basin). In 1688 Jacques de Noyon had reached Rainy Lake. In 1717 Zacharie Robutel de La Noue tried to reach Rainy Lake but only succeeded in establishing Fort Kaministiquia. The English on Hudson Bay heard reports of coureurs des bois west of Lake Superior, but they left no records in the French archives. Morton thinks they may have gotten as far as Lake Winnipeg. In 1716 a memoir drawn up by Governor Vaudreuil showed lakes and portages as far as Lake of the Woods from which flowed a river to the Sea of the West. This implies that there had been Frenchmen west of Lake Superior before Vérendrye. La Vérendrye questioned the Indians who came to trade. He learned of the Mandan country on the upper Missouri. These people were described as white men who lived in big houses. A Cree guide, Auchagah, made a map of the canoe routes between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg based on his and other Cree experience. La Vérendrye judged correctly that Lake Winnipeg was the geographic key which must be reached to allow further exploration.

In 1730 he met Governor Beauharnois at Quebec and worked out a plan. La Vérendrye would build a post on Lake Winnipeg. The expedition would be paid for by Quebec merchants who hoped to profit from the resulting fur trade. This method of finance later caused problems because the merchants lacked the capital and organization to efficiently move supplies so far to the west. An additional goal was to divert furs away from the English on Hudson Bay. In the absence of government funds the fur trade was necessary to pay for the exploration. It is not clear whether La Verendrye was genuinely interested in exploration or whether exploration was a pretext for expansion of the fur trade. Maurepas, the French Minister of Marine, was very interested in exploration, but would not provide funds. The French-Canadians, naturally, were interested in the fur trade.

In 1731 La Verendrye, three of his sons and 50 engagés left Montreal. That autumn his son Jean-Baptiste built Fort St. Pierre on Rainy Lake. Next year they built Fort St. Charles on Lake of the Woods which became his headquarters for the next several years. In 1733 Jean-Baptiste got within 20 miles of Lake Winnipeg, but was blocked by ice and lack of supplies. In 1734 Lake Winnipeg was reached and Jean-Baptiste built Fort Maurepas (Canada) near the mouth of the Red River at the southern end of the lake. In 1734 La Verendrye went to Quebec to reorganize the finances and returned the following spring. In 1735 over half the beaver pelts reaching Quebec came from La Verenedrye’s posts. By 1736 it was clear that the supply system was not working and Jean-Baptiste was forced to go to Lake Superior for supplies. He and eighteen other Frenchmen were killed by the Sioux at a place called Massacre Island on Lake of the Woods. La Verendrye restrained the local Cree from a war of revenge in order to protect the fur trade. In 1737 La Verendrye returned to Quebec on business.

In Paris Maurepas was pushing for more exploration. By this time there were two candidates for the ‘River of the West’. The correct one was the Saskatchewan River which flows east into Lake Winnipeg. The other was the Missouri River in the Mandan country in what is now North Dakota. The Mandans were said to live in big houses and resemble Frenchmen. La Verendrye picked the Missouri. In September 1738 he reached Fort Maurepas on Lake Winnipeg and ascended the Assiniboine River to Portage La Prairie where he built Fort La Reine just south of Lake Manitoba (October 1738). Joining a large band of Assiniboins, he pushed southwest across the prairie and reached a Mandan village probably somewhere near the modern New Town, North Dakota about 70 miles east of the Montana border. Oddly, he did not push on to the Missouri, but sent his son Louis-Joseph to do it for him. In order to get rid of their numerous Assiniboine guests, the Mandans claimed that there was a Sioux war party in the area. The Assiniboines fled, taking with them the Cree interpreter. Unable to talk to the Mandans, he left two Frenchmen to learn the language and returned to Fort La Reine (January 1739). In 1740 he returned to Quebec on business and in 1741 started on his fourth and last journey west. From Fort La Reine he sent his son Louis-Joseph exploring westward as far as, probably, the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming (1742–43). He worked to consolidate his hold on the chain of lakes that looks like a single lake west of Lake Winnipeg, establishing Fort Dauphin (Manitoba), Fort Bourbon and Fort Paskoya. Back in France, Maurepas was growing increasing irritated with La Verendrye, who he thought was trading in furs when he should be exploring. In 1742 Maurepas suggested that he be replaced and in 1743 La Verendrye resigned. He returned to New France and led the life of a gentleman while doing a considerable business since his sons remained in the west. In 1746 he was reappointed to his old post. He was planning a fifth expedition, this time up the Saskatchewan River, when he died in December 1749. Shortly before his death he was awarded the Order of Saint Louis.

Afterwards

From 1744 to 1746 La Vérendrye’s position in the west was held by Nicolas-Joseph de Noyelles de Fleurimont who accomplished little. After the elder La Verendrye’s death the new governor Jonquière forced his sons out of their father’s patrimony and control of the west was given to Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre (1750–53). He built Fort La Jonquière somewhere on the Saskatchewan, but failed in an attempt to ascend that river. He was followed by Louis de la Corne, Chevalier de la Corne (1753-1756). He built Fort de la Corne on the Saskatchewan. In 1756 the western command was given to Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye, but he was unable to travel to the west. During the French and Indian War (1754-1763) the western posts were gradually abandoned. With the end of the war control passed to the English.

 

 

Thomas Talbot

Colonel the Honourable Thomas Talbot (July 19, 1771 – February 5, 1853) was an Irish-born Canadian soldier and politician.

Background

Talbot was born at Malahide Castle near Dublin, Ireland. He was the fourth son of Richard Talbot and his wife Margaret Talbot, 1st Baroness Talbot of Malahide (see the Baron Talbot of Malahide). Richard Talbot, 2nd Baron Talbot de Malahide and Sir John Talbot were his elder brothers.

Early military career

Talbot received a commission in the army as ensign before he was twelve years old, and was appointed at sixteen to aid his relative, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland He saw active service in Holland and at Gibraltar.

Canada

Talbot emigrated to Canada in 1791, where he became personal secretary to John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. After returning to England, Talbot convinced the government to allow him to implement a land settlement scheme along the shore of Lake Erie. He chose property in Elgin County in adjoining townships, Dunwich and Aldborough, when his petition for 5,000 acres (20 km²) was granted in 1803. It was May 21, 1803 that he landed at a spot which has been called since Port Talbot, and built a log cabin. Nearby, he added a sawmill, a cooper shop, a blacksmith shop, and a poultry house along with a barn. When settlers began to arrive in 1809, Talbot added a gristmill as well.

Here he ruled as an absolute, if erratic, potentate, doling out strips of land to people of his choosing, a group that emphatically did not include supporters of the American Revolution, liberals or anyone insufficiently respectful. For every settler he placed on 50 acres (200,000 m²) of land, Talbot received an additional 200 acres (0.81 km²) for himself. He wanted permanent and compact settlement. One of the conditions attached to the free grant of 50 acres (200,000 m²) which he offered to settlers, was the right to purchase an additional hundred and 50 acres (200,000 m²) at $3 each, and the promise of a road in front of each farm within three and a half years. The other condition was the building of a small house and the clearing and sowing of 10 acres (40,000 m²) of land.

The result of the road-making provision was that the settlement became noted for its good roads, especially for that named Talbot Road. By the late 1820s Colonel Thomas Talbot had organized the construction of a 300-mile (480 km)-long road linking the Detroit River and Lake Ontario as part of grand settlement enterprise in the south western peninsula. By 1820, all of the land originally allotted to Talbot had been taken up. From 1814 to 1837 he settled 50, 000 people on 650,000 acres (2,600 km²) of land in the Thames River area. Many, if not most of the settlers, were American. He had placed about 20,000 immigrants on the Talbot settlement by 1826.

Because he had done his work so well, the government placed the southwestern part of the province under his charge. This afforded Talbot the opportunity of extending the Talbot road from the Long Point region to the Detroit River. In 1823, Talbot decided to name the port after his friend Baron Edward George Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, whose son, Frederick Arthur Stanley would become Canada’s governor general and donate to the hockey world the elusive trophy, which still bears his name. According to returns placed before the House of Assembly in 1836, title to some 5,280,000 acres (21,400 km²) located in twenty-nine townships had at one time gone through his hands.

Talbot’s administration was regarded as despotic.He was infamous for registering settlers’ names on the local settlement map in pencil and if displeased, was alleged to have erased their entry. However, his insistence on provision of good roads (notably the eponymous Talbot Trail), maintenance of the roads by the settlers, and the removal of Crown and clergy reserves from main roads quickly resulted in the Talbot Settlement becoming the most prosperous part of the province. Eventually, however, he began to make political demands on the settlers, after which his power was reduced by the provincial government. Talbot’s abuse of power was a contributing factor in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.

Talbot’s home in Port Talbot was called Malahide (which was demolished in 1997, generating much public outcry from heritage preservationists). Talbot died in the home of George Macbeth at London, Ontario in 1853 and is interred in the cemetery of St. Peters Anglican Church near Tyrconnell, Ontario in Elgin County. Talbot eventually moved to London where he lived until his death in 1853. When he died in 1853, at age 82, he had been visited at his historic home on Lake Erie by General Isaac Brock, Francis Gore, Mrs. Anna Jameson, Sir Peregrine Maitland, Sir John Colborne, Chief Justice Sir John Beverley Robinson, his brother the Honourable Peter Robinson, Dr. William Dunlop, Bishops Stuart and Strachan, Sir George Arthur, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Aylmer and many others. He lies buried at Port Talbot overlooking his beloved Lake Erie.

Talbotville (a community in Southwold, Ontario) and the city of St. Thomas, Ontario were named after him, as well as Colonel Talbot Road and Talbot Street in both London and St. Thomas.

 

Martin Frobisher

Synopsis

Born around 1535 in Yorkshire, England, Martin Frobisher became a licensed pirate and plundered French ships off the coast of Africa. In the 1570s, he made three voyages to discover a Northwest Passage to the Orient. Instead, he discovered Labrador and what is now Frobisher Bay. Later, he was knighted for fighting against the Spanish Armada. He was killed in a battle with Spanish forces in 1594.

Early Life

English explorer Martin Frobisher was born in 1535 (some say 1539) in Yorkshire, England. His merchant father, Bernard Frobisher, sent him to stay with a relative, Sir John York, in London, where Frobisher attended school. In his early years, Frobisher came into contact with London seamen and developed an interest in navigation and exploration. His goal, like that of many explorers of the time, was to discover the fabled Northwest Passage—a sea route above North America that linked the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Frobisher’s travels began in the 1550s, when he explored Africa’s northwest coast, particularly Guinea, in 1553 and 1554. The following year, Frobisher became an Elizabethan privateer, or lawful pirate, who was authorized by the English crown to plunder enemy nations’ treasure ships. In the 1560s, Frobisher gained a reputation for preying on French trading vessels in the waters off Guinea; he was arrested several times on piracy charges, but never tried, according to PBS.

New World Voyages

It was for his three voyages to what was then called the New World that Frobisher became a famed explorer. He was among the first English explorers to sail the northeast coast of North America.

Determined to find a Northwest Passage, Frobisher worked for five years to obtain funding for his expedition. He convinced the Muscovy Company, an English merchant consortium, and its director, Michael Lok, to license him and then raised enough money for three ships. He set sail on June 7, 1576, and sighted the coast of what is now Labrador, Canada, on July 28. Several days later, he sailed through the bay that now bears his name, Frobisher Bay. Because of windy and icy conditions, Frobisher could not continue to sail north, so he sailed west instead and reached Baffin Island on August 18.

On Baffin Island, a group of natives captured several members of Frobisher’s crew, and despite several attempts to get them back, Frobisher was unable to retrieve them. He set sail back to England and took with him a piece of black stone that he believed to contain gold. Frobisher’s reports of possible gold mines convinced investors to fund a second voyage.

On May 27, 1577, Frobisher set out to sea again, this time with additional funding, ships and men. He reached Frobisher Bay on July 17 and spent several weeks collecting ore. He was directed by his commission to defer discovery of the passage to another time and focus on gathering precious metals. Frobisher and his crew brought back to England 200 tons of what they believed to be gold ore.

England’s queen, Elizabeth I, had strong faith in the fertility of the new territory. She sent Frobisher back for a third voyage, this time on a much larger expedition, with 15 vessels and the necessities for establishing a 100-man colony. Frobisher set sail on June 3, 1578, and landed at Frobisher Bay in early July. He and his men failed to establish a settlement as a result of dissension and discontent, so they all returned to England with 1,350 tons of ore. Upon their return, it was discovered that the ore was actually iron pyrite and therefore worthless, although it was eventually used for road metaling. Because the ores proved valueless, Frobisher’s financing collapsed and he was forced to seek other employment.

Battles and Death

In 1585, Frobisher returned to the seas as the vice admiral of Sir Francis Drake’s expedition to the West Indies. Three years later he fought for the English against the Spanish Armada and was knighted for his efforts. In the six years that followed, Frobisher headed several English squadrons, including one that attempted to intercept Spanish treasure ships in the Azores. During a scuffle with Spanish forces in November 1594 during the Siege of Fort Crozon, Frobisher was shot. He died several days later, on November 15, in Plymouth, England.