Canadian Hydrographic Society

The Canadian Hydrographic Association (CHA) wrapped up another successful conference (CHC2014) in St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador this past April. Partial proceedings are now available through the CHA website, www.hydrog­raphy.ca. Proceedings of the past several CHCs are also available through this site.

Plans are underway for CHC2016 in Halifax Nova Scotia at the Westin Hotel from 16 to 19 May 2016 and CHC2018 in Victoria, British Columbia at the Empress Hotel from 5 to 8 March 2018.

Lighthouse magazine, the journal of the CHA, is no more. With the publication of Edition 82, this brings to a close the more recently sporadic publication of a journal that was once regularly published in spring and fall of each year. The lack of a full-time editor, difficulty getting volunteer hours needed for journal production and the dearth of contributors have all led to its demise. A project is underway to make all 82 past issues of Lighthouse available on the CHA website, at the URL given above.

The 2014 CHA Award of CAD2000 has been granted to Stephen Finnis, from the University of Victoria. The award has been given annually to deserving students since 1992. Subsequent to this award, it will be given every other year - in even-numbered, conference years.

Hydro International will become the new home of news from CHA for CHA members. CHA members are also encouraged to submit short articles to Hydro for publication. CHA members now receive a subscription as part of their annual membership fee and will receive the balance of the journal issues for 2014 and an entire year of Hydro International ­starting in 2015. Please contact your branch VP to ensure your correct distribution contact information is provided to Hydro International for future distribution.

For the benefit of other hydrographic societies, the CHA has five branches: Atlantic, Quebec, Ottawa, Central and Pacific, and a national executive consisting of a national president, treasurer and secretary, plus the vice presidents of the five branches. Central Branch looks after our international members. All branches have both regular and sustaining (corporate) members. News from the branches will regularly occur in these pages. Reports from our Central and Ottawa branches follow.

Central Branch 

On 23 June, belated World Hydrography celebrations were held at the Regional Hydrographic Office in Burlington, Ontario. The event was co-sponsored by CHA Central Branch. Local members and retired hydrographers, Earl Brown, Robert Marshall and Al Koudys joined with Hydrographic staff at the Bayfield Institute to help pipe in the event. A National Film Board of Canada documentary ’Charting the Frozen Sea’ on Beaufort Sea hydrography in the 1980s was shown and CHA Central Branch member Glenn Macdonald gave an encore presentation of his CHC2014 paper entitled ‘Exploring the use of Sound for Representing Complex Spatial Relations in Marine ­Nav­igation’. Afterwards there was a bbq and World Hydrography cake was served.

Ottawa Branch

On 22 May 2014, the Canadian Hydrographic Association, Ottawa Branch, hosted a conference on Standards for Geospatial Interoperability given by Mr. C. Douglas O’Brien from Idon Technologies. This presentation stressed the fact that hydrography is much more than just nautical charts and that in fact it relies on larger structure that consolidates data and information in a standardised format providing sense and quality to the information supporting hydrographic work.

Also, the Canadian Hydrographic Association and CHS Ottawa celebrated World Hydrography Day with an outdoor event. This event was a great opportunity to unite our members and promote discussions. This event was attended by Department of Fisheries and Oceans assistant deputy Minister Dave Gillis.