January 19, 2014

RCAF Station Holberg / CFS Holberg

Operational from January 1st 1954 to August 30th 1990, CFS Holberg's operations site atop Mt Brandes (50.6403, -128.1304) is still active today as a (Western) coastal radar station.  The domestic site, pump facilities, power plant, GATR site, and everything else was torn down in 1991.  I'd very much like to get better pictures of the area at the top of Mount Brandes where the old buildings were located, and see which survive in their original state today (versus new buildings built on their foundations).  The Air Defence Radar Veterans Association has analysed the latest Bing Sattelite imagery (here) and laid out where some of the facilities had been.  It would be great to pinpoint them on the ground.  I'm also curious if the foundations at the domestic site were dug up, or the buildings just bulldozed and taken away.

Refernces:
http://www.holberg.ca
http://www.radomes.org/museum/showsite.php?site=Holberg+AS,+BC,+CN
http://www.militarybruce.com/history/base-history_38.html
http://wikimapia.org/10160650/former-Holberg-radar-site
http://pinetreeline.org (many pictures from 1953 - 2005)
    (partially mirrored here: http://67.69.104.76:84/Pinetreeline/photos/photo21.html)


Challenges of backroad travel
Unknown (?) to the photographer Michael Shepard (flickr:mgsbird) this picture has been taken before, in 1976.

"A real "attention getter" on the road between Holberg and Port Hardy - July 1976. Courtesy Will Shank"



Domestic Site



View Larger Map

Operations Site




View Larger Map

3 comments:

  1. I worked at RCAF Stn Holberg 1959

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wayne,
      I bet you've got some amazing stories of your time at RCAF Station Holberg :)
      If you write your memoirs, or even have them posted elsewhere on the web, please do let me know!

      Delete
  2. I was a part of the 2CMU crew that built the GATR site at RCAF Stn Holberg in 1962.

    ReplyDelete