Connective Technologies:
1700 - 1990

Roger Boshier
University of British Columbia

1865: Telegraph Creek on the Stikine River in northwest B.C. becomes the site for a plan to connect North America with Europe by stretching a telegraph line from the U.S., through B.C., Russian America (as Alaska was known) Siberia and Russia. The project collapsed in 1867 when a rival company laid a cable across the Atlantic Ocean. The Klondike gold rush revived interest in communications and, in 1899, the government of Canada financed a cable that went north through Telegraph Creek, Atlin and into the Yukon. But the chatter of morse code didn’t ease the isolation and, as late as 1957, it was still an event when someone reached Telegraph Creek in a car. In 1971 the residents were debating the wisdom of trying to get electricity and telephone service.

1918: On December 30, Sam Spetch, a farmer at Owl Creek in a remote location near Pemberton, gazes at the snowy landscape and listens to the cacophony of his children in the background. He picks up a pen and writes to Premier John Oliver asking for a correspondence school to serve children in "this outlandish place." Unfortunately, ten children were needed to form a school and Spetch could not easily round up another six to add to his four. He could have copied other farmers and signed up his farm animals for school.

1919: Captain Robertson, the Dominion Inspector of Lighthouses, notifies Provincial educational authorities of the "educational neglect" of 90-100 children on the lights (the children at Sherringham and Lucy Point lights are particularly backward), 15 at wireless stations and hundreds in the hinterland - some more than 80 miles from a school. (http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_90/pdp07480.gif)

1919: In Victoria, the Premier realizes Spetch will not easily take no for an answer and confers with officials. On May 13 the Superintendent offers Spetch assistance. He has referred the problem to the Coal Mines Department that conducts courses for miners in remote locations. On May 20, 14 year old Elizabeth Spetch writes to the Coal Mines Department saying she and her siblings will be very "pleased to have the pleasure of taking lessons and will do my best." On May 23 the instructor sends two parcels by mail. The Spetch children diligently return their completed lessons with Elizabeth writing "thank you" letters on behalf of the younger ones.

1919: On January 16 farmer Spetch again writes to Victoria saying there has been no reply to his previous letter. I "have four children anxious to learn ..." On February 14 the Superintendent of Education writes to Spetch saying "your proposal cannot be successful." On April 22 Spetch writes again, this time offering to pay for correspondence lessons. On April 24 the Superintendent says "no further progress has been made ... you need ten children for a school."

1920: In the last months of 1920 the Spetch family lapse into silence and, in Victoria, the teacher is worried. Finally, a letter dated December 10, 1920 reaches Victoria. 14 year old Elizabeth Spetch has died. "Backward" children were found at B.C. lighthouses and, from June 1, 1919 to June 1, 1920 122 correspondence pupils were enrolled. Elizabeth Spetch has started a B.C. tradition. (http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom)

1929: [Env] John Wesley Gibson, formerly of the elementary agricultural education branch, designed to impart "rural values" amongst citizens, appointed Director of the High School Correspondence Branch. His task was to provide correspondence education to citizens in remote areas. B.C. was the first Province to provide this kind of service. (http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom)

1929: Staff at the Elementary Agricultural Education Branch are busy. On February 21 they are engaged in correspondence about lantern slides on soils and poultry, on March 6 they dispatch lantern slides on landscape gardening, on March 13 "poultry slides" are sent to Miss Seaton; on April 12 a set of lantern slides on astronomy are sent to Rev. Priest (Hollyburn). Rev. Priest has a fortuitous name and will presumably give an illustrated lecture on astronomy.

1929: The May issue of School Days, a magazine given to schoolchildren and their parents, contains an advertisement from the B.C. Telephone Company. "Where handiness is essential the monophone is unexcelled." A monophone was a telephone with a separate ear and mouth piece.

1934: Isabel Bescoby, Director of the Elementary Correspondence School, says a mother wrote that her children had been held back because they had no crayons. Bescoby put 20c in an envelope and sent it to the woman with a note drawing attention to crayons sold in the Eaton’s catalogue. Another mother had written about the lack of a blackboard. "I have tried various articles as a substitute ... including the tops of black gumboots tacked side by side on the wall. But it is makeshift and unsatisfactory." (http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom)

1935: On February 5, Isabel Bescoby, the erudite and passionate head of the Elementary Correspondence School made a broadcast on Radio Station CRCV extolling the virtues of correspondence education. Bescoby had no time for pessimists who questioned the standards of correspondence education and, when resources were not available, often reached into her own pocket to get pens, papers or other materials to a needy student. When confronted by critics - harping on about low standards - Bescoby would read from letters received from appreciative students.

1936: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation founded and begins cooperation with B.C. schools. The Okanagan Valley Teachers’ Association airs six programs on music appreciation on Station CKOV, Kelowna. This sparked considerable interest in radio as an aid to education in B.C. (http://www.mala.bc.ca/history/homeroom/radio.htm)

1936: Following the success of the Okanagan educational radio broadcasts. The Minister of Education, G.M. Weir, establishes a committee to expand the work.

1938: [Ext] The Elementary Correspondence School, sparked into life by Sam Spetch’s initiative in 1919, is meeting the needs of adults and children in remote locations. "With each set of twelve lessons, pupils are sent a supply of practice paper, ruled lesson paper, drawing paper, four small envelopes (9" x 12") for mailing completed lessons to the school and a sheet of stickers."

1938: On March 21 the CBC started broadcasting programs such as "Musical Pathways," "Elementary Science" and "Social Studies" in B.C. In Vancouver this was on Radio Station CBR. (http://www.radio.cbc.ca/index.html)

1939: The Correspondence School is staffed by skilled writers who go on a public relations offensive. Adults and children enrolled in the Correspondence School "represent a vivid cross-section of B.C. life; children of lighthouse keepers and trappers, of homesteaders and telegraph operators, of ranchers, loggers and miners, of people of all classes ... If the children live more than three miles from a school they may receive lessons by mail"

1941: [Ext] National Farm Radio Forum launched. This was a cooperative program of the Canadian Association for Adult Education and the CBC. In B.C., as elsewhere, farmers and their families were organized into listening groups. After the broadcast on a relevant topic (such as agricultural policy, international trade, farm life) groups would discuss questions posed and send feedback to the regional and then the national office. Feedback would be summarized and incorporated into a subsequent broadcast. More than 40 countries emulated this Canadian innovation. Today, the only remnant of this broadcasting tradition is CBC Cross Country Checkup, a radio "talk show."

1943: [Ext] Using the Farm Forum as a model, and considering the urgency of wartime conditions, the CBC and CAAE got together and started the Citizens Forum which continued for twenty years. The organizers wanted to build a Canadian consciousness concerning contemporary issues and contribute to dialogue about post-war life in Canada. Older educators steeped in the liberal tradition often look back at these as the halcyon years of adult education in Canada.

1948: On October 5, Radio Station VE7N1 goes on the air at the Jericho School for the Deaf and Blind. The equipment was supplied by Captain Grant and Captain Purtell of the army. Unfortunately, a few years later, the army decided they wanted the gear back and left a cadre of unhappy deaf and blind ham operators at Jericho. At the time, this was the only "blind" ham station in Canada. In view of the fact the army base was right next to the deaf school one wonders why the equipment didn’t come back over the fence on a rainy Vancouver night.

1957: At the height of the Cold War the U.S. is stunned when Russia launches a dog named Laika into space aboard their Sputnik satellite. Somehow the much vaunted "free" market had been duped by communists. In the U.S. the blame (for falling behind) fell on schools and launched an obsession with "competency-based" approaches. But, in B.C., citizens gazed at the blinking ball passing overhead and speculated about how satellites would help get education and other services out of the lower mainland and across the mountains to the interior and the north. The space race would put Americans on the moon a decade later and, in B.C., satellites would alter the nature of education.

1958: [Ext] On May 11 Radio CJVI broadcasts a program about the Correspondence School recalling the Spetch family and the children of light keepers at Sherringham and Lucy Points.

1970: On August 21 J.R. Hinds, Director of the Correspondence School, writes to Susan Ramstead of Armstrong. "You have the distinction of being the 30,000th pupil to be registered in the Elementary Section of the Correspondence Division." He promises a "memento" if her progress is satisfactory. On her file he places a note to instructors "Watch her progress ...." (http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_159/i_51578.gif)

1972: [Ill] Patrick McGeer UBC Professor and iconoclast, later (1975) Minister of Education, sought to open access for those typically denied entrance to Lower Mainland universities and, as well, wanted a dramatic expansion of educational television, the "greatest untapped resource of all." (http://www.mrc.gc.ca/communik/2104/mcgeers.html)

1972: On July 1, Vancouver’s David McTaggart aboard the yacht Vega (renamed Greenpeace III) is rammed by the French minesweeper La Paimpolaise in the nuclear blast zone off Mururoa atoll. McTaggart’s marine radio - a vital part of his public education program - is jammed by French authorities. Despite McTaggart’s presence in the blast zone, the French explode their bombs in the atmosphere. Paralleling McTaggart’s work is that of the New Zealand Peace/Media Research Project lead by Barry Mitcalfe and Roger Boshier and supported by Radio Hauraki and thousands of ordinary New Zealanders. Peace Media launches three boats - Boy Roel, Magic Isle and Tamure - for the blast zone. Boy Roel left Tauranga on July 2 but had engine problems and lost power. Magic Isle carried Matiu Rata, N.Z. Minister of Maori Affairs and maintained communications. Tamure carried N.Z. educator, writer and activist Maurice Shadbolt and a powerful ham radio set. Three books tell the tale of the N.Z. "peace fleet" and it’s connections to the Vancouver activists. Mitcalfe, B. et. al, Boy Roel: Voyage to Nowhere; Shadbolt, M. Danger Zone; Locke, E. Peace People.

1974: The Ministry of Education Audio-Visual Services was disbanded and radio broadcasts become the responsibility of the newly created Provincial Education Media Centre. Under the direction of Barrie Black, PEMC embarks on serious television productions.

1975: [Ext] The Provincial Educational Media Centre (located at BCIT) commissions UBC’s Roger Boshier to evaluate the impact of its Science and Society program, television series designed to make science intelligible to ordinary citizens and hosted by a more-or-less unknown UBC geneticist - David Suzuki. (http://www.vkool.com/suzuki/biography.html)

1975: The National Film Board Challenge for Change program was entering its last phase. Having started in the late 1960’s most of the action was in Ontario, Eastern or Central Canada where film and video were used to orchestrate dialogue between marginalized groups and those in power. One of the most enduring outcomes of Challenge for Change was the Fogo process designed by the NFB and the Memorial University Department of Extension Services. In B.C. video was used in Surrey where citizens "spoke" their opposition to plans to locate an oil refinery nearby. Challenge for Change sparked production of many beautiful videos and movies but, when it started having an impact the Federal government, growing tired of being criticized by a federal program, withdrew its support. An outstanding Challenge for Change film was Boyce Richardson’s Cree Indians of Misstasani. (http://www.nfb.ca/)

1976: Remembering the glory days of the Farm Radio and Citizens Forums, and stimulated by the election of a separatist government in Quebec, the Canadian Association For Adult Education and CBC again attempt to animate public discussion about the future of Canada in a program called People Talking Back. In B.C. discussion groups are organised by local Extension workers but achieves mediocre results. Canada is no longer in a wartime emergency and citizens are glued to television sets.

1976: The Federal Department of Manpower and Immigration requested that the Vancouver School Board cooperate to evaluate a "computer-assisted counseling program - the Guidance Information System." It was a product of the U.S. "Time-Share Corporation." In the end, three Vancouver schools tried the system but, like so many other magic bullets this one exploded with a small pop and then fell flat on its face.

1977: [Ext] Between October and December, about 95 hours of interactive television is broadcast from the B.C. Institute of Technology (in Burnaby in the Lower Mainland) to a network of five other sites. Although interactive, these programs were not very compelling. For many participants the ability to see a talking head in a distant location didn’t represent much of a development.

1977: [Ext] In September, Patrick McGeer announces the Satellite Tele-Education Project (STEP). The task was to "bring the educational mountain to Mohammed. Television is one medium that can replace bricks and mortar very effectively, delivering learning right into the living room." McGeer is also thinking of John Ellis’s sacred cows that need a shake-up. However, when the costs are calculated, the obsession with satellites doesn’t last long. Even though seen at a distance a talking-head is still a talking head.

1979: [Ext] In November the Hermes satellite stops functioning. However, as it had lasted a year longer than expected, there has been ample opportunity to explore ways to better serve the educational, health and broadcasting needs of people in remote parts of the Province.

1983: The UBC Graduate Department of Adult Education purchases a Model 1000A "Remote Teleconference Unit" (for "press-to-talk" audio-conferencing) from Vancouver’s Western International Communications. From the Adult Education base at 5760 Toronto Rd, on the fringes of the UBC campus, one of the first audio conferences is with James Botkin, author of the Club of Rome’s No Limits to Learning and then located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later there will be audio conferences with Malcom Knowles, Roland Paulston and other illuminaries. People used to marine or air VHF radio like saying "over" when it’s the other party’s turn to speak. Others forget and chaos reigns. In 1999 Boshier phones WIC for information about this unit but they don’t remember making it!

1983: The Victoria Public library provides courses in Telidon page creation. Videodiscs and videotex were the heart of Telidon which consumed vast federal resources but was overwhelmed in 1991 when Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. These days Telidon is variously constructed as a necessary step in the development of connective technology. Others condemn it as a federal boondoggle that consumed too much money - another magic bullet that landed in a swamp. In Canada, some of the leading exponents of Telidon were University of Guelph agricultural extension workers who saw it as a way to reach farmers in distant locations.

1984: [Ext] By using the video cassette recorder, teachers no longer have to organize lessons around set radio broadcasts. Hence, the B.C. School Radio Service is closed. Another consequence of the VCR was the space created for gay-video and creation of images denied space in mainstream broadcast media. Discovery of the AIDS virus in 1982 encourages mass media to turn on gay men with a vengeance. In Vancouver, as in other places, the gay male body was constructed as the ultimate metaphor of death and disease through the propagation of demonstrably false notions nested in discourses such as "gay cancer." However, in Vancouver, places like the Video-Inn cooperative on Main St, provide safe spaces for making gay - as well as various "other" - video productions. Community video was more to do with connection than extension.

1984: Vancouver science fiction writer William Gibson coins the term cyberspace in his first novel Neuromancer. Although his first novel it gains cult status as a new genre labelled cyberpunk. This literature is pessimistic and points to the rise of predatory multinational corporations. As well it highlights the negative effects of technology on everyday life. Neuromancer wins three major science fiction awards and is regarded as one of the breakthrough novels of the 20th century. Swedes are particularly taken with Gibson and, in an interview with Stockholm radio, Gibson claims "I don’t even have a modem." (http://www.josefsson.net/gibson/index.html)

1988: Papers submitted to the B.C. Royal Commission on Education claim that "telecommunications, like no other technology, has the potential to radically change the basic structure and processes of education." In his submission, Kevin Elder quotes from Cetron, M. Schools of the Future. "In the year 2000, nine-tenths of all homes will be wired with new laser technology and many will receive interactive cable and computer online networking. Students will be able to direct dial their encylopedias and other resources for homework, individual research and study." Mostly nonsense. Another magic bullet fired into the bush.