History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy

	History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network
Bamfield Cable Station British Columbia, Canada

BAMFIELD CABLE STATION

1902 Pacific Cable

The landing of the British Australian Telegraph Company submarine cable in Australia in 1871 renewed the campaign for a state owned Pacific cable. Sir Sandford Fleming, chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was the man responsible for the idea. The Dominion governments held a conference in 1877; while a decision to proceed was not taken, suggestions for a route were invited, the only condition being that the cable had to land on British territory. To make this possible Fanning Island was formally annexed in 1888.

The route selected was Bamfield, Vancouver Island - Fanning Island - Fiji - Norfolk Island. From Norfolk Island, two cables were laid. One went to Southport, Queensland, with a landline to Sydney, while the other landed at Doubtless Bay, Auckland.

It was decided to lay the Bamfield-Fanning Island section in one continuous length. At the time no cable ship existed that could carry the cable to do this, so the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company had CS Colonia built. Laying of the 3459 nautical mile long cable began at Bamfield on 18 September 1902, reaching Fanning Island on 6 October. CS Anglia laid all the sections from Fanning Island to Australia and New Zealand during 1902.

From Bamfield messages were sent over the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph to Montreal, from there to Newfoundland, then via a trans Atlantic cable company to Ireland and finally to England.

In 1901-1902 the Canadian Pacific Railway Company constructed the Cable Station, Bachelors' Quarters and Manager's House. A second cable was laid to the Fiji Islands in 1926, and a new concrete cable office building was built below the original building.

The Canadian government took over the Cable Station in 1950 and the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation was formed, becoming Teleglobe in 1975, and now VSNL International Canada. In 1959, a new state-of-the-art cable station was built in Port Alberni and the Bamfield Cable Station was shut down. The last messages were sent from Bamfield on June 20th, 1959, and in 1965 many of the original wooden buildings on the site were demolished.

In 1969 the cable station property was purchased by the Western Canadian Universities Marine Biological Society, and in 1971 development began to convert the old cable station site into a research station. Most of the physical facilities were completed by the end of 1972, and the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre began operations as a marine laboratory.

The site is open to visitors, and in May 2007 Chris London took the photographs shown below and wrote the accompanying notes.

In May, I traveled to Bamfield, British Columbia, site of the old Red Line Pacific Cable Station. After talking with the Public Education Director, I was given a tour of the Bamfield Site, now the Bamfield Marine Science Research Facility.

The concrete building, constructed in 1926, still stands. It was designed by Francis Rattenbury who also built the BC Parliament Building and the Empress Hotel in Victoria. The square building in the lower right was the cable treatment tank, which is now used as a shark tank.

See the map below for the location of the cable station.

1930 historic marker plaque

Main entrance to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.

Even today, Bamfield is only accessable by boat, or by 90 kilometers of logging road. A few pieces of cable equipment still remain but are packed away in boxes. Otherwise a plaque surrounded by a globe made from recovered cable is all that remains.

Detail of the historic marker plaque

Chris London in the cable globe

Recovered cables used to form the globe encircling the marker plaque

The view from the station

Sample of the 1902 Pacific cable, shore end