Harbours, Ports, Piers, Wharves, Steamers and Vessels belonging to the Government of Canada, except gunboats or other vessels of war, harbour commissioners, harbour masters, classification of vessels, examination and granting of certificates of masters and mates, and others in the merchant service, shipping masters and shipping offices, inspection of steamboats and board of steamboat inspection, enquiries into causes of shipwrecks, establishment, regulation and maintenance of marine and seamen hospitals, and care of distressed seamen, and generally such matters as refer to the marine and navigation of Canada. Responsibility for the construction and operation of canals was given to the department of public works at the time of confederation, with the canals of the United Province of Canada having been previously operated by that colony's department of public works. Marine Service of Canada In its early days, one of the department's most active agencies was the operation of the Marine Service of Canada, which became the forerunner to the Canadian Coast Guard, with vessels dedicated to performing maintenance of buoys and lighthouses. Whereas fisheries management was not as important as it became in the latter part of the 20th century, a major responsibility for the Department of Marine and Fisheries included the provisioning of rescue stations and facilities at the shipwreck sites of Sable Island and St. Paul Island off Nova Scotia. The department also had responsibility for overseeing the qualification of apprenticing sailors who desired to become mates or shipping masters, as well as several marine police forces, which attempted to combat illegal crimping, the trafficking of sailors in human bondage at major ports. The foray into enforcement saw the department operate the "Dominion cruisers" which were armed enforcement vessels operating for the Fisheries Protection Service of Canada, a continuation of the Provincial Marine enforcement agencies of the British North American colonies. These ships and other chartered schooners and the like, would cruise the fishing grounds off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, watching for violations within Canada's territorial sea, then only three nautical miles (6 km) from shore. Naval service Prior to the First World War, Canada had limited naval forces, with the majority of protection having been provided by the enforcement vessels of the Department of Marine and Fisheries (Dominion Cruisers) or Fisheries Protection Service of Canada, and by Britain's Royal Navy. In 1909-1910, the Department of Marine and Fisheries became linked to efforts to develop a Canadian naval