Our Next Speaker
569th Meeting
12 March 2024
John Gilbert
SPARK TO CYBERSPACE: MILESTONES IN CANADA’S
NORTHERN COMMUNICATIONS
Canada can justly claim to be a world leader in
communications but bringing communications to the
underserved areas of the Canadian North has been a
challenge. The Western Arctic, building on the
early telegraph service, was served from 1923 to
1959 by The Northwest Territories and Yukon Radio
System but the eastern Arctic, the focus of this
talk, developed differently. The talk will
highlight the early innovators and personalities
who brought communications to the eastern Arctic.
Examples of major communications milestones,
starting in 1924, will be explored with particular
emphasis on the years 1927 to 1929. Wireless
played a major role in those years for the 1927-29
Hudson Strait Expedition, the arrival of the
railway at Churchill and the inaugural voyage of
the RCMP vessel St Roch. The talk will conclude by
describing the pivotal Yellowknife Communications
Conference, September 1970, the launch of the
domestic communications satellite Anik in 1972 and
steps taken to adapt this new technology to meet
the needs of northerners with the announcement of
Canada’s Northern Communications Policy in 1975.
John Gilbert received his early
education at King Alfred School, London, England,
under the headmaster Frederick Spencer Chapman, a
member of the 1930-31 British Arctic Air-Route
Expedition and the 1932–33 Greenland Expedition.
Immigrating to Canada in 1953 he served as a Radio
Operator at Resolute Bay and Eureka, Nunavut from
1956-58. He travelled to Eureka on the icebreaker
D’Iberville. He then followed a career in
telecommunications and information technology. He
was the Executive Secretary of the 1984 Worldwide
Commission on Telecommunications under the
auspices of the International Telecommunication
Union, a UN specialized agency. He was associated
for many years with UNESCO. John has maintained a
life-long interest in the High Arctic and compiled
a collection of photographs, documents and stories
on the Joint Arctic Weather Stations: 1947-72 now
held by the Nunavut Archives. He curated the 2014
exhibit "The Polar Adventures of Andrew Taylor"
assisted by a Northern Studies Award and Research
Grant Program from the University of Manitoba.
John is a graduate of Carleton University and is
currently President of The Arctic Circle.
The meeting will be held in the
Beaver Lounge on the ground floor of the Warrant
Officers’ and Sergeants’ Mess, 4 Queen Elizabeth
Driveway, Ottawa. The Mess sits alongside Lisgar
Collegiate, facing the Rideau Canal, and is
accessible from the Driveway just south of the
Laurier Bridge. Parking is available in front of
the Mess and in adjacent lots and is free. The
meeting begins at 2000 hrs and the bar will be
available from 1930 hrs. As always, guests are
welcome.
Next meetings:
Apr
9
Vincent Blouin & Gabrielle Boudreault on
contaminants in lakes near Yellowknife
Apr 25 Annual Dinner with
guests-of-honour, Jack Kobayashi and Antonio Zedda
Thomas Frisch
Secretary
613-725-2221; tfrisch@sympatico.ca
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SPEAKERS
PROGRAMME
2023-2024
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October 10 Lisa
Mullins
Archivist,
Inuit Circumpolar Council
Canadar
"The Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada
Archives"
November
14 Kathy
Haycock
Artist
"A Northern
Paintbrush"
December
12 Amanda Savoie
Director,
Centre for
Arctic Knowledge
and Exploration,
Canadian Museum
of Nature
"Studying
Seaweed Biodiversity and Ecology
in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut"
January
9 AGM and
speaker Rae
Landriau
M.Sc. Student, Geography and Environmental
Studies,
Carleton
University
"Performance of Drilling Waste
Sumps in the
Mackenzie
Delta"
February
13 Cassandra Marion
Planetary Scientist, Science Advisor,
Canada
Aviation and
Space Museum
"Discovering
Mars in the
Canadian Arctic"
March 12 John
Gilbert
"Spark
to Cyberspace:
Milestones in
Canada's
Northern
Communications"
April
9 Gabrielle Boudreault and Vincent
Blouin
M.Sc. students,
Université du
Québec à
Montréal
Gabrielle Boudreault: "The
evolution of amphipods in
the context of mining
contamination in
Yellowknife"
Vincent Blouin: "Links
between energy metabolism
and As and Sb species in
Yellowknife’s Esox
lucius"
April
25 Annual
Banquet with
guests-of-honour, Jack
Kobayashi and Antonio
Zedda
Kobayashi +
Zedda
Architects
“Architecture and Permafrost
- creating solid buildings
on bad soil 64-68 N”
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