Signatures, Spring/ Summer 2016
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THE MAGAZINE OF LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA SPRING SUMMER 2016 SIGNATURES TEAM Steven Artelle Betty Geraldes THE MAGAZINE OF Cheryl McIntyre Sandra Nicholls Sylvain Salvas Peggy Thériault LIBRARY AND EDITORS Louise Pedneault ARCHIVES Caroline Shaughnessy TRANSLATOR CANADA Martin Beaudry SPRING / SUMMER 2016 ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Eric Quesnel GRAPHIC DESIGNER Projextra COORDINATOR DIGITAL VERSION Snjezana Kulic PHOTOGRAPHERS David Knox Introduction Out from Under by Sandra Eric Quesnel 1 12 by Guy Berthiaume Nicholls, Manise Marston, Tom Thompson Leah Cohen and 2 Outsmarting the Enemy Michael Kent before Enigma by Marcelle Cinq-Mars 15 Keeping Secrets Secret by William Benoit To contact the editors: [email protected] 6 Life at Library and Archives Canada: Learning a Little 16 Picturing Early about a Lot by Alexandra New Brunswick All images presented in this issue of Clemence by Rob Fisher Signatures are from the collection of Library and Archives Canada unless otherwise indicated. 8 “My Beloved Zoé” 18 LAC Perspectives by Théo Martin 20 Spilling Secrets 11 The Otherworldly Side of Mackenzie King Library and Archives Canada by Anna Lehn 550 boulevard de la Cité Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0N4 www.bac-lac.gc.ca ISSN 2369-4521 (Print) Cover / Fredericton, N.B. from the Oromocto ISSN 2369-453X (Online) Road (detail) by Lieutenant Robert Petley, 1837. Source: e007914123 hat Canadian institution is best placed to devote an publish photographs from our collection to illustrate W entire publication to the theme of secrecy and hidden their articles. Yet the readers of these pages don’t seem meanings? It has to be Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to notice that it is our name in the credit lines. And while of course! After all, we derive great inspiration from The works from our collection are on permanent display in Secret Bench of Knowledge, the sculpture by Ontario artist the most prestigious museums, some visitors don’t even Lea Vivot that graces the main entrance to our Ottawa realize where they come from because our name is merely offices at 395 Wellington Street. Indeed, there are probably a mention on exhibit labels accompanying these paintings lots of secrets hidden inside the 22 million books and and engravings. 250 kilometres of archival records that form part of LAC’s collection. But some of these secrets may never come to Consider for a moment the words of Winston Churchill light, even though most of the material in our collection about his rival and successor, Labour Party Prime Minister, can now be consulted in person and online. And even if all Clement Attlee: “Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed, these secrets were to come out one day, there would still he has a lot to be modest about.” While there may be be 30 million photographs, 3 million maps, 550,000 hours merit in being modest, I do hold the opinion that LAC of audiovisual recordings and 425,000 works of art for would benefit greatly from raising its public profile by future generations to peruse and analyze! showcasing more of its collections and services. In support of this vision, I have only to look at what’s happening in So, it is a great delight to share our discoveries of some LAC Perspectives: the exhibition Alter Ego: Comics and lesser known facts from Canada’s official history in this Canadian Identity, curated by Meaghan Scanlon, is on second issue of Signatures. My colleagues at LAC have display in Ottawa at 395 Wellington until September 14; and been investigating some fascinating files, whether combing LAC’s recent decision to move its Atlantic client services, through Wilfrid Laurier’s private correspondence, delving currently housed in an industrial park in Dartmouth, closer into Mackenzie King’s preoccupation with spiritualism, to the centre of Halifax, to the popular, more frequented examining artworks of pre-Confederation New Brunswick Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. by British military artists, or deciphering coded messages from Edgar Dewdney, Lieutenant-Governor of the North- Ars est celare artem? Not really: ours is the business of West Territories, to Sir John A. Macdonald. There are even revealing art. two books of secret codes that the War Office in London used during the Great War—salvaged from the scrap heap. Happy reading, and be sure to pass our secrets and hidden And there is the 16th-century religious text that was meanings on! defaced by a censor’s iron gall ink but restored to reveal passages of text thought to be lost forever. I must also mention the saga of the prolific beavers of Patagonia and the eyewitness accounts of their shenanigans that our colleague Alexandra Clemence uncovered. And, lastly, a favourite of mine, one of 12 volumes in our Rare Book Collection artfully decorated with fore-edge paintings. Guy Berthiaume Librarian and Archivist of Canada Taken together, the hidden secrets and meanings gleaned from these collection materials represent unique riches to be shared widely with our clients. But have we become too discreet an institution or complacent in our knowledge of these secrets? Every day of the week Canadian newspapers Guy Berthiaume, Librarian and Archivist of Canada 1 OUTSMARTING THE ENEMY BEFORE ENIGMA 2 Previous page / A worker installs a telegraph line (Yukon, 1910). This communication medium — BY MARCELLE CINQ-MARS, Archivist was easy to sabotage, so encrypted messages had to be used throughout the First World War. wo small faded books, worn with extensive use, have Source: a095736 T occupied a place for years in the Sir J.W. Flavelle fonds of Library and Archives Canada. At first glance, there is Code books of the Imperial Munitions Board were key for the manufacture and shipping nothing special about them to catch your eye. But once you of munitions, such as this shell produced in open them, everything changes. You discover that these Quebec in 1917. Source: MG 30-A16 seemingly nondescript books conceal a secret chapter in the history of the First World War. They reveal a world where spies and saboteurs, hiding around every corner, stopped at nothing in their pursuit to destroy the enemy. sabotage or interception: it was simply a matter of cutting a few wires on telegraph poles, severing undersea cables, or There is little known about the history of espionage, or installing antennas in the right locations. “war in the shadows.” Many of us have heard of the famous Enigma machine that the Germans used during the Second In August 1914, Europe was on the brink of war. World War to encrypt their messages, and the heroes of Anticipating its own imminent entry into the conflict, Bletchley Park who succeeded in cracking its code. But Britain deployed a special vessel off the German coast. few of us realize that it was the lessons in the use of codes The mission: to locate Germany’s undersea telegraph learned 30 years earlier that made any of this possible. cable. Just hours after Britain declared war on Germany, the ship’s crew dredged and severed the cable. Communication media in the early part of the 20th century involved technologies of the telegraph and wireless A few weeks later, the Russians recovered a secret German telegraphy. The latter incorporated cutting-edge radio wave code book from a sunken vessel and shared it with the technology. Both technologies were highly susceptible to British. The Allies now had the keys to decode enemy 3 transmissions. Without the undersea cable, the German Authorities in the United Kingdom set up two units to army was reduced to using landline telegraphs, which intercept and decode enemy communications: the famous left their communications vulnerable to interception by MI1 of the War Office and “Room 40” of the Royal Navy. counter-espionage units. The latter decrypted a crucial telegram from German ambassador Arthur Zimmermann, proposing that Mexico It was imperative to code all outgoing and incoming invade the United States to divert it from the conflict in transmissions. To that end, communications specialists Europe. Upon learning of the plot, the President of the developed codes so secret that no one could United States had no hesitation but to lead his country into decipher them. war against Germany. The British began by compiling a list of numbers With war declared, the Canadian government’s first associated with each word in the dictionary. Using that counter-espionage measure was to ban the possession of list, the War Office in London produced two small books, wireless telegraphy systems. Many of the systems were one for encrypting outgoing messages and the other for seized for the duration of the conflict. Anyone in possession decrypting those received. But this posed a serious risk: if of such equipment was not only subject to a heavy fine but one of the books fell into enemy hands, all communications also to a prison sentence! could easily be decrypted. To avoid such a risk, codes were changed regularly, and all obsolete books had to be burned Canada used a secret diplomatic code to communicate with or returned to the War Office. Britain. Messages from the Imperial Munitions Board of Canada were particularly important, as the Board oversaw the manufacture of arms and ammunition for the Allies, crucial supplies in the war effort. Communications had to be conducted with the utmost secrecy, especially for shipping goods via sea convoys, which were constantly preyed upon by German U-boats. Accordingly, the Board’s Women hard at work in the munitions factory in Verdun, Quebec, ca. 1916. Supplies of arms and Chairman, Joseph Wesley Flavelle, was issued two “Top ammunition were shipped to England by naval Secret” code books. convoy. Source: PA-024436 4 An encrypted telegram.