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NLIS 1
July 24, 2001
(Tourism, Culture and Recreation)

 

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Kevin Aylward, Minister, Tourism, Culture and Recreation, invites the media to the opening reception celebrating the Conception Bay Museum, Harbour Grace, as a Receiving the World Communications site. Robert Thibault, Minister of State for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, will bring greetings from the Government of Canada. George Sweeney, MHA, Carbonear-Harbour Grace, will represent the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The event begins at 3:00 p.m., Wednesday, July 25, at the Conception Bay Museum, Water Street, Harbour Grace.

Conception Bay Museum
Wireless telegraphy arrived in Newfoundland just as the Anglo-American Telegraph Company's 50-year monopoly on transatlantic telegraphy to and from the island was ending. These two new avenues of opportunity stimulated both commercial and amateur communications activity; in Harbour Grace, overseas cable communication and amateur (or "ham") radio developed almost side-by-side.

Harbour Grace's transatlantic cable station was set up (1904) in one of the grander buildings in town, the two-storey stone Ridley Hall. In a nice twist of serendipity, a previous owner, Harrison Ridley, had hosted a ball there to celebrate the arrival of the Heart's Content cable in 1866.

Connected by direct cable links to locations as close as Bay Roberts (1914) and as far away as Ireland (1928) and the Azores (1928), the Harbour Grace telegraph station operated, with some interruptions and changes of ownership, until 1953. Meanwhile, as amateurs in the area began to use the Marconi wireless technology, an active community of "ham" operators grew up. One of the earliest radio call signals granted in Newfoundland went to a Harbour Grace resident.

The Conception Bay Museum, housed in the 1870 brick Customs House perched at water's edge and a stone's throw from the privately owned Ridley Hall, weaves the threads of these stories, and more, into exhibits and living interpretation.

Media contact: Mary MacNab, Communications, Receiving the World Celebrations, (709) 729-3813.

2001 07 24                                                         10:30 a.m.


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