The Pony Express Tapestry Story Ivan (Bill) Crowell, master weaver, alumnus (B.Sc.F, 1929) and long-time friend of the University of New Brunswick, created the pony express tapestry in 2000. This tapestry was created to mark the opening of the Computer Science Information Technology Centre building at UNB. Besides creating this tapestry, Ivan also donated $100,000 to help build the Computer Science building. The pony express was once the fastest means of communication. In 1849, it was possible to transmit a message only 200 km by electric telegraph. To speed the arrival of news from Liverpool, England to New York, a pony express service was established to carry a news package between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Victoria Beach (on the Bay of Fundy in Annapolis County). From there, the news packages were brought by a chartered steamship to Saint John, N.B. for transmission by telegraph relay to New York city. This high-speed rerouting of messages allowed them to arrive in New York 12 hours before the steamship from Liverpool (via Halifax) arrived. The news message packets were carried in a pouch on horseback, and were reformatted in Saint John into 3,000 word (about 15,000 characters) telegraph transmissions. What speed would the messages travel at? The 15,000 character telegraph message from Saint John to New York took 3.5 hours, a rate of about 12 bits per second. From Halifax to Saint John, a total of 15 hours were required (with 11 of these hours required for the pony express part), giving a rate of 2.8 bits per second. From Liverpool to Halifax, the steamship took 13 days, a rate (for the same 15,000 character message) of 0.133 bits per second. In 1849, communication networks contained a mix of physical layers, just as they do now. The motivation to communicate as quickly as possible continues unabated to the present day. Innovation in Atlantic Canada to improve communication networks and services was flourishing in 1849, and such innovation continues to flourish today.