From here to Venus in 1769

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/06/2012 (5213 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a long way from the transit of Venus to Prince of Wales Fort in northern Manitoba, but the astronomical event and the 280-year-old stone fort share a connection and a story fit for a Hollywood movie. The tale is long forgotten, but worth recalling as an exciting part of the province’s history and for what it says about nationalism and scientific endeavour.

In 1769, the Royal Society of London sent scientists to different parts of the world to observe the transit of Venus, which can be seen here on Tuesday. The explorer James Cook was dispatched to Tahiti, while other ships carried scientists to Norway, California and other faraway locations to observe Venus as it crossed the disc of the sun.

Two scientists, William Wales and Joseph Dymond, were sent to Prince of Wales Fort, near present-day Churchill, in what must have been one of the most undesirable locations for scientific discovery at that time. Because of ice conditions, they left in 1768 for an August arrival and then spent the winter at the fort preparing for the transit, which took place the following year on June 6.

“They had to spend 13 months at the fort for a seven-hour event,” says Duane Collins, a Parks Canada interpreter at Prince of Wales Fort.

The goal was to collect data that could be used to calculate the distance between the Earth and the sun, although the research had practical applications for navigation. (Scientists would later discover the transit was useful in determining the size of the solar system.)

It was high-level science and “the big endeavour of the day,” but the magnitude of the British effort was a reflection of the rising nationalism of the era in general, and competition with the French in particular.

During the previous transit of Venus in 1761, French scientists had succeeded in recording more observations than the British, a humiliation not forgotten. Just as the Americans and the Soviet Union competed for supremacy in space exploration in the mid-20th century, the French and British were the prime antagonists of the 18th century.

Prince of Wales Fort was itself part of that rivalry as the French and British battled for control of Hudson Bay and the fur trade. Three French warships captured the fort in 1782, but returned it to the Hudson’s Bay Co., which built, manned and owned it, a year later.

By today’s standards, it seems almost cruel to have dispatched two scientists to such a difficult life at Prince of Wales Fort, but by the standards of the day, it wasn’t an unreasonable hardship given the opportunities for great scientific discovery and observation.

Wales and Dymond might be considered the first scientists in Manitoba, but Mr. Collins says most of the Hudson Bay men, including Samuel Hearne, were also ardent naturalists and good observers of the ecosystem.

Wales later became Cook’s astronomer on one of his voyages before settling into a teaching job in London, where one of his students, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, later penned The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He had earlier taught astronomy to explorer George Vancouver. An asteroid is named after Wales and Dymond.

Their story is just a footnote in the history of science, but it is an inspiring tale of the extraordinary efforts that have been made in the name of discovery and knowledge.

It is unfortunate their names have been largely forgotten in Manitoba, except perhaps by the few souls who venture to the fort every year. Distance keeps most Canadians from the historic fort, but Parks Canada has remained true and loyal to the place where a significant piece of Canadian history unfolded.

The transit of Venus reveals how big the universe is — the planet is just a speck against the solar backdrop — but it is also a reminder of the continuing, relentless determination of humanity to understand the universe and our place within it.