 Wates was an accomplished amateur astronomer who served as president of Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.He also wrote for academic journals and magazines such as "Scientific American" and the "RASC Journal", and was awarded the Chant Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada; "for outstanding amateur contribution to astronomy in Canada" in 1943.The year before, Wates had built a reflector telescope that he donated to the University of Alberta for their future observatory.