GUEST COLUMN (April 13, 1992)

This is a fortuitous time to be marking the Geological Survey of Canada’s 150th anniversary (the official anniversary of the survey is April 14, 1992.) We are in the midst of a profound process of constitutional reform. We are exploring afresh our understanding of who we are as Canadians and rethinking how best to reshape our institutions for the future.

As we debate the sort of structures that will serve us in the future, I think it is appropriate that we celebrate a national institution that has served so well for so long. . .

The Survey has continuously gone out to discover what we have in this vast land. The work of the geologists of the Survey attracted the prospectors. Then came the miners and oil riggers, the railway and pipeline crews, the farmers and townspeople. A good deal of the present map of Canada — many cities and towns, and railways and highways — can be traced back to a different kind of map — the geological maps that were drawn during a century and a half by the GSC.

The history of the Survey is epic. In the early decades, those who entered its service were explorers and adventurers of the first calibre. The adventurers of the GSC were superb woodsmen; their survival depended on it. They also were scientists, carefully cataloguing and mapping the land. They patiently tapped at it with their hammers and laboriously measured it with their footsteps.

But beyond the quest for knowledge, there was the splendor of the panorama these adventurers were privileged to behold. They observed and recorded not only the rock structures, but also the birds, fishes and animals; the flowers and trees; the climate and soils; the peoples and their languages, legends and customs. Some of the best descriptions of 19th-century native life were penned by Survey staff. Many of the most fascinating photographs of Canada before the turn of the century were developed and printed in leaky, smoky tents, or in icebound boats on Arctic shores, all in the service of the Survey.

The history seems romantic, but right from the start, the Survey was a pragmatic endeavor. It has always been concerned with serving the needs of the resource industries, and in particular, mining.

Sir William Logan, the first director of the GSC, was an internationally known geologist when he was appointed to conduct the Survey. He was a workaholic and very much an eccentric. He had earned a comfortable fortune before entering public service, but wore well-aged, shabby clothes. He lived a spartan bachelor’s life in a single room that was something of a hovel. The floor was strewn with rocks and papers, and a large array of worn-out work boots. He slept on a hideaway bed, in the same blankets he used in the wilderness.

Logan was not formally educated in geology. In those days, the leaders in the young science were, for the most part, well-read amateurs.

Logan made major contributions to the advancement of the science, but he was also a very practical man. He was respected for being astute in sizing up the business prospects of a mining venture. He had that very effective combination of scientific curiosity and hard-headed business sense. His character left its stamp permanently upon the GSC.

Since the founding of the GSC, Canada has grown immensely. Fortunately the GSC today has help in its endeavors. It works in close co-operation with 11 provincial and territorial geological surveys.

Several new tasks have been assigned to the GSC. It assesses geological hazards such as the potential for earthquakes. It gathers information on the ecology of past eras, as revealed by geological science, in order to establish baselines against which we can monitor environmental change. However, the central mission of the Survey remains unchanged from the earliest days. The Survey continues to chart and understand the geology of Canada, as an aid to finding and using our mineral and petroleum resources. Nowadays, the explorers of the Survey are mapping what lies deep beneath the surface of the earth. They are looking at the seabeds off our coasts. In these tasks, they employ the very finest, leading technology. And the GSC is a leader in enhancing the high-tech tools of its science, in geophysics and related fields.

— Jake Epp is the federal minister, Energy, Mines and Resources.