Historic Places Shaped by Communication

Back in the 1830s where letters were the only form of long-distance communication, the post office was an important financial and communications hub for the city’s 9,000 residents.

This bunker was equipped with the latest 1960s technology to ensure both underground governance and outside communication. To keep their location secret, the bunker was connected to five other satellite bunkers through 90km of copper wire. By relaying messages through these satellite bunkers, they made it seem like messages came from those bunkers.

They also used rotary telephones for uninterrupted communication, radio rooms, and the Top Secret Super Computer Room where signals could not leak in and where the military would communicate and process information between bases and Allied countries.

Métis ancestors served as guides, interpreters, and negotiators for major trading companies, such as the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company. Their language, Michif, combined both Cree and French elements to create a unique linguistic heritage.

The museum’s exhibit The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act demonstrates that paper was used as both a tool of communication and used for control. The Canadian government had issued specific identity papers (CIs) to control, contain, discourage and exclude Chinese Canadians.

The registration required any Chinese Canadian wishing to leave and re-enter Canada to bring in their landing certificate, present it and go through an interrogation. If they were approved, the back of those certificates would be stamped.

This museum was the former house of Cory O’Dell, a rider of the Nova Scotia Pony Express. Over May through September 1849, mail steamships would arrive in Halifax every week. The riders would pick up these news and rapidly travel distances. They carried news to Digby, then by ferry to Saint John, then by train or rider to the U.S. border where telegraph lines existed.

However, after the completion of a telegraph line from Saint John to Halifax, the Pony Express became obsolete.