Getting the message out
The dot-dash key hidden for so long by the plywood cover was surprisingly shiny and functional. I noted a tag which said that this item (saved from the irresistible advance of technology) was last used on March 31, 1967. It was on that date that Morse was put to rest by Canadian National Telecommunications in St. John’s. More than 50 years had since come and gone. The instrument, once so essential, is now a curiosity.
At the point of Confederation there were, I have read, three telecommunications systems between Newfoundland and the mainland; a voice-only radio system owned and operated by the Canadian Department of Transport; a voice-only radio circuit (used solely for commercial long-distance message traffic) and owned and operated by the Canadian Marconi Company and the Newfoundland Department of Posts and Telegraphs’ “frequency spacer” on the submarine cables of the Commercial Cable Company and Western Union Cable Company used for a public message service and a private wire service.
Shortly after Confederation, Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation (COTC) purchased the single voice-only radio circuit owned by Canadian Marconi. COTC and CNT under the general direction of the federal government then pushed ahead with the development of telecommunication facilities between our island and the mainland.
At that point, it was COTC’S responsibility to provide facilities for long-distance public telephone service and CNT was to provide facilities for private wire to include voice, teletype, CBC programming, government and military uses, telegraph and telex.
Pieces of the story
It would be impossible in a brief column to cover the evolution of this quickly expanding and highly specialized field. In any case, (I submit) it would take a communications expert to do so. But snippets of the story have a general appeal, so let me give a few to illustrate, hopefully, the kind of challenge to upgrade our communications back in the 1950s and 60s.
When the first CANTAT (Canadian Transatlantic Telephone Cable) was laid on the floor of the Atlantic 63 years ago, the procedure was reversed from what it had been in 1866. On June 22, 1955, the cable ship Monarch started in Clarenville and with the world’s first transoceanic telephone cable paid out from the stern, headed east toward Oban, Scotland.
IT WAS A BIG DAY in Clarenville. On hand were representatives of the three participants, COTC, the British Post Office and the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. Clarenville declared a civic holiday; the western end of the telephone cable was christened with a bottle of water from Heart’s Content Harbour and Monarch sailed on the $40 million venture.
BUILDING OUR SYSTEM was not simply a matter of providing poles and technical equipment. A year after Confederation, CNT started to increase the capacity of the systems entrusted to it at Confederation. They needed to build a narrow-band radio link between Sydney and Red Rocks near Port aux Basques. At Red Rocks the area was so remote and unfrequented that CNT built houses for its people who went there. The site could only be approached by rail and it was a task indeed to get men and materials to the selected spot.
ACQUISITION of small components of the Newfoundland communications network proceeded fairly rapidly with Confederation. CNT purchased the Buchans telephone system at the same time that the Avalon Telephone Company brought the systems operated by the two paper companies, Anglo-Newfoundland
Development and Bowaters. Avalon and CNT were growing and although they were establishing their own franchise areas they were inter-connected in some areas. Avalon’s long-distance traffic multiplied greatly but it kept abreast of the volume by buying use of the modern microwave facilities which CNT had installed across the island in 1957.
AS THE 1960s came on, it was evident that Newfoundland would be totally served by two communications operations, CNT and Avalon Telephone (which by then had become Newfoundland Telephone). When the owners of Avalon Telephone Company decided to sell, CNT was interested from the start believing, apparently, that the new province was not too great a task-area for one communications organization. Although CNT’S bid was higher, Bell received permission of the provincial government to acquire the company. With the Newfoundland public clamouring for telephones everywhere, Bell said it would spend $100 million on development over 10 years and this was music to the ears of Premier, J.R. Smallwood.
NEWFOUNDLAND TELEPHONE did expand its service but the greater geographical area of the province (and, in fact, the most sparsely-populated) was the responsibility of CNT. Reaching outports and offshore islands meant building pole lines in rugged, roadless terrain, laying underwater cables and providing radio links. Commercial power was not always available and CNT had to generate its own. In a large number of the communities reached and provided with telephone service, the total population ran only to a few hundred, allowing only a slim return on investment.
WHEN THE HUGE (and advanced) microwave system was being installed across the island in 1957, many excited people from the rural areas asked the building-team if this meant they could hook up to the new towers and get television. It took some effort from the team to explain that the towers would make it possible to bring TV in to a station which in turn had the job of getting television it out to the homes.
BY THE TIME Newfoundland had been a province for 25 years the three systems which existed at 1949 (and even one of the early systems which replaced these) had been written-off because of obsolescence or insufficient capacity.
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Last Monday’s column carried a late-1930s photo of Tom Will Marsh, Garnish. I noted that Marsh opertated a taxi service from there to St. John’s. As that suggests the taxi service was contemporary with the photo, anyone who knew the Burin Peninsula then, knew that was wrong. I received this email from Harold Grandy: “Hi Paul — The article is an interesting read. I’m originally from the Burin Peninsula (Grand Bank) but I’m wondering how Tom Marsh operated a taxi service from Garnish to St. John’s? The Burin Peninsula was isolated until the forties when the highway was connected to the Terrenceville area. However, in later years Caleb Marsh did operate a taxi service from Garnish to St. John’s. It was a terrible gravel highway all the way until you got to Brigus. It was a very dusty drive and took in excess of eight hours to drive. A pleasure to drive now!”