HISTORY

This property was owned by the Mackay United Church until 1912 when it was sold to the Department of the Interior. The following year, a building was erected to house the Physical Testing Laboratory, as part of the Topographical Survey of Canada, for the calibration of survey chains and rods for use in the mapping of Canada's vast territory. At that time, 66 foot steel tapes were the official instrument of measure. A tape comparator was installed in the building that became known as the Comparator Building - hence the structure's long and narrow shape. In 1931 the Department of the Interior was in the process of being dismantled, and the survey labs, along with the Comparator building, were placed under the administration of the National Research Council. By the 1950s, the building had become obsolete as a comparator facility.

The building was rejuvenated as the Cosmic Ray Observatory. - one in a chain of monitoring stations operated by the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, which also operated stations at Inuvik, Alert, and Deep River. The cosmic ray monitoring program contributed information to a world database for distribution and use by 52 research communities in 21 different countries.

For some 40 years - until 1993 - fluctuations in intensity within the 22-year solar magnetic cycles were charted and analyzed. Though the work done was considered to be "pure science", cosmic ray data had application to several practical research and development programs of the NRC and other agencies, including the effect of cosmic radiation on high-altitude pilots, on weather, and on satellite communications. The research activity was passive in nature and did not intrude on the quiet residential character of the neighborhood.

Research operations at this facility ended in 1991.


Source - Building Report 95-123, Joan Mattie, Historical Services Branch, Parks Canada


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