Gonzales Observatory served as Victoria's weather and time station. Photo © Cindy Andrie via flickr and Creative Commons

 

We lost an hour last night.

Don’t send out a search party. The hour is not hiding under the bed, or communing with dust bunnies at the back of the closet. It hasn’t eloped with a dish or a spoon, or ridden a cow bareback over the moon.

Our concept of time, with its discrete hours, minutes and seconds, is a result of our need for predictability and stability, and the progress of our technology.

Before moment-to-moment measurement became possible, we relied on the Earth’s tilted, spinning loops around the sun to measure time. Every sunrise, sunset, high noon, or full or new moon brought a new unit of time. The sun’s creep along the horizon signaled seasons. Animals and our own patterns provided points of approximate precision to our days. Wrinkles creeping across faces, children becoming adults, saplings maturing into trees, and other signs indicated decades.

Technology overturned that. Fire and electricity made night into day. Clocks introduced minutes and seconds, and made promptness, regular schedules and shift work possible.

Even after clocks became portable, sailors relied on the sun to determine how far east or west they had travelled. Ships’ captains determined high noon where they were, set one time piece on board to that time, and compared the difference against another time piece. On any ship flying under the Union Jack, that second time piece was set to Greenwich time, in England. In those pre-GPS days, time accuracy was essential for ships in port to set their time pieces and measure position.

As a major shipping port for the British Empire, Victoria benefited. For example, in February 1859, the Victoria Gazette reported that Captain Trevett of the Hudson’s Bay Company steamer Labouchere, which was in harbour, consented to fire a gun at noon every Thursday, so that the citizens of Victoria could “regulate their time pieces and obtain the true time.” Two decades later, the Work Point garrison established a time-keeping routine by firing its time gun at eight or nine o’clock on Monday nights….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Through an aquarium at Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, Sidney, B.C. Photo © Herb Neufeld, via flickr & creative commons

Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, Sidney, B.C. Photo © Herb Neufeld, via flickr & creative commons

Picture a community hall on a weekday evening. About 40 people sit in rows. Official-looking sorts look back over the audience.

The people have gathered at this fictitious meeting to discuss the fate of a nearby fictitious historic site/nature centre/community museum/natural or cultural heritage site. Like so many real sites in the region—Craigflower Manor and Schoolhouse, the Centre of the Universe, Undersea Gardens, Crystal Gardens, BC Experience, the Soviet Submarine, or Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, to name a few—is no longer open to the public.

For two hours, those gathered have spoken in support of the site. Government Gus has presented how the government, which owns the site, is looking for a new operator—even if it means repurposing the site.

Education Eli has spoken of the site’s value to the community, especially to its youngsters. “It’s the kind of vital enrichment that connects classroom learning to the community,” she says.

Others have spoken, too, suggesting new activities, new uses, new revenue sources. Everyone agrees the site is an important resource. It helps define and focus the community. It creates common identity and builds community spirit….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Undersea Gardens no longer operates in Victoria, B.C.'s Inner Harbour. Photo © Brian Chow, via flickr & creative commons

Undersea Gardens no longer operates in Victoria, B.C.’s Inner Harbour. Photo © Brian Chow, via flickr & creative commons

Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, on Little Saanich Mountain, Victoria, BC. Photo © Caylin (plums_deify, flickr)

No lights shine at the Centre of the Universe today.

The staff who ran the interpretive centre at Little Saanich Mountain’s Dominion Astrophysical Observatory cleaned out their desks yesterday, turned the light out, and vacated the building. So ends 12 years of educational programming about astronomy and Canada’s place in scientific research.

The National Research Council, which operates the centre, had the unenviable choice this year of cutting outreach or cutting even deeper into research.

It was one of many challenges the federal agency faces. The government recently adjusted the NRC’s research priorities to match private sector goals that focus on applied, or practical, research

Applied research is important. It can lead to patents, jobs, manufacturing, and all that good economic stuff.

However, the shift at the observatory is ironic.

In 1910, when astronomers suggested Canada’s government build a new, bigger, better national observatory, they specified it be purpose-built for studying astrophysics.

Not astronomy. Astrophysics….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….