As any sailor worth his salt at the end of the 19th century could have told you, a lighthouse wasn't much use if all the light around you was obscured by the thick banks of fog that often blanket the treacherous channels of the Gulf Islands. It was a Canadian invention, the diaphone fog alarm that helped keep mariners off the rocks as they sailed and steamed around the George Straight.

Each diaphone had its own unique rhythm so that ship captains could identify where they were on their charts. The two sounds, a "blast" followed by a "grunt", where created using similar technology to that used in organs, by forcing compressed air through specially shaped pipes out the small end of a resonator or horn. Initially running on steam, fog horns later ran on diesel and electric motors, providing an invaluable, life-saving service to mariners all over the world.