On Jan. 12, 1961, Canada’s first laser was operated at NRC’s Sussex Drive spectroscopy labs. This was a joint project by me and Boris Stoicheff. Earlier attempts by us had failed because of poor crystal quality. Dr Schawlow (then at Bell Labs) who was visiting at the time pulled a ruby rod out of his pocket and said “try this”. It lased successfully producing a bright collimated red beam. Later work using more strain free rods also lased and started me on a research path of laser spectroscopy of solids.