April 24, 2013

How many posts does it take to make a test-McGill Fence?

Courtesy Canadian Forces
Wikipedia poses an interesting conundrum to my search for where the Mid-Canada Line test fence locations were.  Larry Wilson, who knows his Mid-Canada Line trivia, doesn't mention more than four Ottawa Valley test-fence sites (plus Mont St-Bruno, QC)

From the SE of Ottawa, toward the NW we have the South Glouscester MCL Site 012  which I know is the South-East-most fence "post" because it only has Doppler radar dishes pointing in one direction (Towards Fitzroy Harbour, MCL Site 013)  Fitzroy's tower no longer exists and I haven't found any pictures of it, but as it was a picket fence of sorts, the next stop in the same direction is Haley Station, MCL Site 014.  I don't know the exact location of Haley station, but continuing in that same direction we do get to Alice MCL Site 015, which also no longer exists.  Each of these sites are ~40-50Km apart, and Wikipedia says there were seven sites, ending at Mattawa.  Does that line up with the dots?  Yes it does.  In fact, if there were another three "posts" to the fence at 40-50Km intervals we would end up at Mattawa, and we would have seven Doppler sites in the test fence... as Wikipedia said.

So, I guess I'm not looking for two out of four test sites, I'm looking for five "missing" sites of seven! 

Credit: Bing Maps and Gimp
Indeed, the rough path of where you would expect the next two sites after Alice to be are within the boundaries of Algonquin Park.  So, to clarify, I'm looking for two clearing in the woods, in Algonquin Park that may have exposed or buried cement pads, and potentially an antenna tower, perhaps lying down on the ground, if there at all... right.

Mattawa I've only driven through in the middle of the night, and I don’t know where the test fence site was there either. Clearly more research is needed...

No comments:

Post a Comment