The GSC: Taking the measure of Canada for 150 years

Created in 1842, the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) has been the driving force behind the geological mapping of Canada’s nearly 10 million square km of land and freshwater lakes, and more than 6 million square km of continental margin, or coastal boundaries.

The GSC is one of Canada’s oldest scientific agencies and among the world’s first national geological surveys. Such surveys were still uncommon when it began, although France and Britain had established theirs in the 1830s. The GSC began life under the direction of William Edmond Logan, a charismatic Canadian businessman-turned-geologist. Under Logan’s direction, the first survey the GSC carried out was of Quebec, in an effort to find coal, the main fuel of industry at the time. Although the search for coal was unsuccessful, the GSC survey did determine there were minable deposits of copper and other metallic minerals, setting the scene for much of Canada’s 20th century hard-rock mining industry.

In its early years, the GSC covered more than just geology. Staff members also studied and documented geography, topography, plants, animals, birds, archaeology and peoples. Members of the GSC have often been among the last to witness untouched lands before development started, and their reports and photos form a cornerstone of Canadian archival material.

Indeed, under Logan’s stewardship, the GSC promoted Canadian resources and geology abroad, forming links with American and British surveys and participating in international exhibits. As a result, Logan was inducted into the Royal Society of London after an exposition in that city in 1851 and was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour in Paris, where he earned praise for Canada worldwide during the 1855 Universal Exposition. Queen Victoria recognized his work by knighting him in 1856.

Other directors also had a great impact on the GSC. In the 1880s, George Mercer Dawson became a pioneer geologist and noted ethnologist in western Canada. His reports included observations on the Haida Indians of British Columbia, and his photographs of people, settlements and totem poles give a last glimpse of a vanishing landscape. In the late 19th century, under the direction of Albert Peter Low, GSC field trips were epic adventures, some lasting more than a year at a time using canoes, ships, snowshoes and dog-teams.

With time, the GSC has become more specialized. In 1927, the National Museums of Canada broke off from the Survey, and many of the Survey’s early topographic mapping and policy duties have been transferred to other sections of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada, which itself grew from the Department of Mines, an offshoot of the Survey.

In 1992, as the GSC marks its 150th anniversary, it remains true to innovative roots and to a well-deserved international reputation. It continues to provide Canadians with superior technology and geoscientific knowledge about Canada and its offshore, its mineral and energy resources, and the natural conditions that affect land and seabed use.

There are still places in Canada known only through reconnaissance maps drawn from helicopter-supported surveys. These areas will provide the GSC with new frontiers and challenges that may take it well into the 21st century. Guarantee of continuity

For nearly 30 years, the GSC lacked any guarantee of continuity. The first parliamentary resolution had provided 1,500 for a 2-year survey. A sum of 2,000 per annum was granted in 1845 for a 5-year period. When the term expired in 1850, Logan found that a political crisis for a time seriously threatened any consideration being given to renewal of the Survey’s mandate. However, eventually the 1845 act was renewed — 2,000 per annum. Again in 1855, the same problem was encountered. Logan was obliged to drum up support from all sides — the governor general, scientists at the University of Toronto, the Anglican bishop and John A. Macdonald. A new bill was passed which increased the appropriation to 5,000 but once again the term was for five years only, thus leaving the future of the organization at the whim of the legislature.

The purse strings were somewhat loosened in 1854 and an additional 2,000 were granted to permit publication of a geological map and condensed report on the geology of Canada.

In 1859, the 5,000 grant was cut in half but by 1860, the Survey was back to $20,000 (or 5,000; conversion from sterling to dollars took place in 1859.) The Act again expired in 1861 and because of a political crisis caused by the American Civil War, it was not renewed.

For the next few years Logan had to go each year to the government for the annual $20,000 appropriation and thus was more exposed to the threat of an empty treasury than he had been at any time since the commencement of the Survey.

Confederation in 1867 greatly extended the Survey’s area of responsibility and in 1868 a new 5-year act giving $30,000 per year, retroactive to July 1, 1867, was passed. The Survey, which had reported through the Secretary of State for the Provinces, became a responsibility of the Department of the Interior, an arrangement that lasted from 1873 to 1890.

When the act came up for renewal in 1877, the Survey was defined as a “branch of the Department of the Interior known as the Geological Survey Branch,” operating in the “several Provinces and Territories of the Dominion.” At last it had permanent status, continuing funding and could entertain long-range plans. It also meant that the permanent staff came under the provisions of the Civil Service Act which, for the first time, gave a reasonable pension security to long service employees.

Decentralized operation

Unlike many government agencies, the Geological Survey Branch is relatively decentralized and its offices reach from sea to sea. Their locations reflect regional scientific interests.

The Atlantic Geoscience Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., was established to facilitate offshore studies and to develop co-operative studies with agencies of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. The Institute of Sedimentary and Petroleum Geology in Calgary reflects the Survey’s involvement with hydrocarbon resources, and the office in Vancouver was established to assist the mineral exploration industry in British Columbia and Yukon but expanded with the setting up of a unit of the Pacific Geoscience Centre north of Victoria, as interest in the west coast offshore areas developed.

The integration of the Earth Physics Branch broadened the regional presence of the GSC. The Canadian seismograph network comprises 16 standard and 44 regional stations and 12 magnetic observatories provide up-to-date information on the magnetic field across Canada.

The Survey is organized on the basis of divisions which reflect either disciplinary or regional concerns. Divisional organization is not static and from time to time reorganizations are made both within divisions or within the Branch as a whole in order that the Survey may respond most effectively to the demands placed upon it.

In 1986, following the integration of the Earth Physics Branch, the Geological Survey comprised eight divisions plus the Offices of the Director General and Deputy Director General.

Helicopters made a difference

Although the use of aircraft to support mineral exploration studies in the north had been pioneered in the late 1920s, notably by mining exploration companies, the GSC did not fully exploit this new technique. Possibly, financial restrictions were the cause because the Survey did make frequent requests to the Department of National Defense for flights into remote northern areas and early appreciated the potential of air photography but certainly no effort was made to use commercially available aircraft in the field.

One of the stated aims of the Survey was to complete the geological reconnaissance of Canada, yet by 1950, after more than a century of work, only about one-quarter of the country had been covered. It was obvious that an entirely new approach to the problem was required, an approach that would increase manyfold the efficiency of one geologist, an approach that would enable him (or her) to spend most of his working day making geological observations instead of on unproductive travel.

Fortunately, when a new tool, the helicopter, appeared in commercial form after the Second World War, the Survey had staff eager to exploit its potential to the full. The first trial survey in 1952, code named Operation Keewatin, was planned and directed by C.S. Lord, later chief geologist, and resulted in the mapping of 148,000 square km of the barren grounds at a scale of 1:506,880. Based on this experience, G.M. Wright directed two more operations west of Hudson Bay resulting in another 330,000 square km being covered.

In 1955, the first comprehensive geological mapping of the Arctic Islands was undertaken. Air photographs of the Arctic taken during the war by the U.S. Air Force had disclosed the existence of a new structural province whose diverse features led geologists from the Survey to postulate in 1954 that several large areas appeared to have similarities to other regions in the world that produce or that are known to have large petroleum reserves. To provide the data needed to prove or disprove this hypothesis, Y.O. Fortier directed a reconnaissance survey of the Arctic Islands in 1955. The area covered was about 520,000 square km, about half of which is covered by the many channels, straits and bays of the archipelago.

Because of the remoteness and difficult terrain, camp moves had to be by helicopter and for the first time, the Survey used helicopters much heavier than those used in the barren ground operations. Eleven geologists and 10 geological assistants comprised the scientific staff. Advance parties were at work in early May. The helicopter-supported field work lasted from June 13 to early September by which time 520 helicopter flying hours had been logged and about 260,000 square km of geologically unknown terrain had been examined. The data obtained and the subsequent report formed the foundation on which later more detailed studies were based and were the basis for the great surge in exploratory surveys by the petroleum industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As early as 1953, light helicopters were used in mountainous, all but inaccessible, areas of coastal British Columbia. By 1973, much of the north had been covered by airborne geological reconnaissance programs and the Survey had all but completed a task that 20 years earlier had seemed all but impossible. At last, data essential to making first order predictions of mineral endowment were available, although more refined predictions will require a much expanded data base.

— Excerpted from Past and Present, a publication of the Geological Survey of Canada.