The ever popular canary found it’s origins in the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa. The Romans named these islands the “Dog” islands due to the natives breeding of an exceptionally large type of dog, “canary” is a variation of “canis”, the latin word for dog. The small yellow-green songbird native to the islands became known as the “canary” and by the early sixteenth Century, became prized as pets in the European world, particularly the adult males, for their near constant melodious song.

With the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century the thirst for coal to fuel the generation of power became acute. Coal mining became widespread, mining accidents, usually due to explosions of methane gas emitted by the coal, also became commonplace. The canary was found to be highly sensitive to the odorless, colorless gas, and when they stopped singing or collapsed, miners knew it was time to vacate the area.

Canary Systems was formed in 1997 to likewise provide cost-effective and reliable information systems that are designed to help our clients better understand the risk factors along with short and long-term performance of their projects. We work in a broad range of industries including mining, geotechnical engineering, structural, environmental, meteorological, industrial and others. We utilize state-of-the-art technology, both hardware and software, and have years of experience with all types of applications. This spans the breadth of system architecture, hardware and software development, database development, and instrumentation. See our projects for a sample of the types of work we have been involved with.