Trip Planning: To Mid-Canada Line Site 060... and back.

New Post Falls
Photo: Andrew McLachlan

Here is the plan for the next trip.

Mid-Canada Line (MCL) sites are rather hard to get to, for me anyway, since the majority were placed along the 55th Parallel.  There are, however, a few sites which stretched South, to bounce the information gathered by the MCL to North Bay.  Those sites were, of course, the troposcatter repeaters stretching South from James Bay.

The Southmost troposcatter repeater is Site 070 (Kempis Mountain, or Mount Kempis) which I've seen before, but hope to see again on my next trip.  It is fully remediated, but provides a fantastic view.

The next hop in the former troposcatter network is 200 km away at Site 060, in Relay, Ontario - a now-non-existent place which once housed diesel generators and radio equipment.  That's where I want to get to. I've never been, and it's pretty much as far North (the 50th Parallel) as you can get in Northeastern Ontario without a canoe.

I will, however, push farther North than that, and aim to get to the Otter Rapids Generating Station, New Post Falls, and see the Abitibi Canyon Dam on the way back.

Two stops in North Bay are planned, and I will document them extensively after they happen.

I had originally been planning to see several of the air strips which were created or upgraded as part of the Pinetree Line project in the early 1950s... however, I discovered there arent many original buildings left at any of the sites... so why bother; sorry to say... My objective was to go somewhere few others have been, and fewer have photographed or documented.  MCL Site 060 at Relay, Ontario fits that bill.

CFS Ramore and GATR Site

Ramore Air Station was built by the USAF, then passed to the Canadians as RCAF Station Ramore, and was decommissioned as CFS Ramore in 1974. It was a sprawling base with 3 gravel runways, several rifle ranges, helipads, at least two private lakes for recreation, and two hilltops to locate radio gear, radar equipment, as well as Diesel generators. The Candian Forces continue to use the property for training off and on, and in 2005 they used it for Exercise Polar Bear, a training exercise in the snow
( http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2005/05/polar-bear-school/ ) The buildings that made up the base, the generator building at the top of the mountain, and even the foundations of the radomes are in good shape compared to other Pinetree Line stations.

Slideshow of my latest CFS Ramore pictures from August 2013


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I mentioned previously that along with the Pinetree Line radar sites there were supporting facilities; air fields were created, mini-radar stations built to fill in the gaps in coverage, and powerful radio transmitters were built to communicate with overflying NORAD fighter interceptors.  Well, every Pinetree Line station (AFAIK), in the early 60s, had their radio transmitters/receivers upgraded.  They went from two separate buildings by the base (say within ~1-2 Km, and on the station's grounds) to one remotely located a bit farther away (say ~3-30Km).  The upgraded transceivers were more powerful than the previous gear, and they didn't want interference from the Radar, or visa-versa.

While looking for the location of the CFS Ramore GATR site I found two hints on the internet:

Hint #1

Narrative Report
RCAF Station Ramore, Ont.
2 Oct 61 to 31 May 62

"19 Mar 62
The GATR site located north-west of the station 17 miles distant by
road, was accepted from the contractor this date."

Source: National Archives of Canada

Meaning, the contractor finished the work and officially handed the keys on that day to DND.  They'd been working on the facility for about two years .

Hint #2

"I was stationed at Ramore from Jan '65 to Jul '71. Worked at the GATR site, which was located just off the Watabeag road."
-Rick Lean,
 Hanover, Ontario

Source: http://highway11.ca/content/Ramore-Original-Comments.htm

By contacting Mike Milinkovic, I found out exactly where the CFS Ramore GATR was located.  From the satellite pictures it was very difficult to discern the location. Usually there is a bare patch measuring 400'x1000' where the antenna farm would have been.  In this case, the foliage had all grown back, leaving only a difference in the shade of green between the old growth and new growth.  I assume the location hasn't been maintained since CFS Ramore shut down in 1974, which explains how much he area's trees have grown.  The site is West of CFS Ramore, connected at one time by telephone cable along a cleared line that you can still see cut along the concession boundaries, is where the site stood.


(Location here: http://binged.it/15pivQU)

(Thanks to Thomas Page of the Online Air Defense Radar Museum for finding the hints above and trying to find the location with his resources too!) 


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Slideshow of my pictures of the CFS Ramore GATR Site

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Two Day Cold War Ontario Blitz - Summer 2013

Trip Report

August 27th and 28th I took a spin to a few Canadian Cold War sites I hadn’t seen, or hadn't seen up close.  Generally, here is the path I took.


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North Bay, Ontario - BOMARC Site
I've mentioned The CFB North Bay BOMARC missile site before, a couple of times, so I wont go into too much detail.

Now decommissioned, the site is a self-storage location and open during business hours.  The owner operator is friendly and has seen a few Cold War tourists drop by. 


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Aerial photo of the SAM site at North Bay - 1967. Courtesy of The NBC Group

I was thrilled to have been invited to see the steam tunnels below the launchers and get a quick tour between two of the hatches to the surface.  The launchers were powered by steam, so the tunnels housed a massive number of wires controlling the electronics, and several pipes for the hot water.  Most of the wires have been taken for salvage, but the pipe, and the conduit the wires sat on, is still there.

Tunnels with conduit and pipe under the North Bay BOMARC Launch Site - Aug 27th, 2013

Burdied water storage tank (one of two)

Sudbury, Ontario - Falconbridge GATR

CFB Falconbridge's GATR site was located a few kilometres away, East, past the airport.  The perimeter is still visible, and the building is, or was, owned by a helicopter maintenance company.  The property is derilict, run down, strewn with empty barrels and pails of hydraulic fluid, has smashed glass, two trashed trailers... but luckily, also holes in the fence.  Thinking about it now, I'm not sure the original building is actually intact or if a new building has been erected in it's place.  The current building is clad in siding, and has an extension built off the side.  Where the TDDL antennas would have been located there is now a helipad on one site, and a pile of garbage on the other side  There seem to be underground water storage, or perhaps tunnels for wiring or other equipment.  Either way, those holes are full of water that I wouldnt want to swim in.  



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View of the building now where the GATR builing was, picture taken facing North

View of the front gate

Timmins, Ontario - The Timmins Gap Filler Annex
I'd never been to Timmins, I really only knew what I've read on Wikipedia, but a Gap Filler Annex was built there in the early 1960s, and the dual purpose fire tower / radar tower is still standing.  At least part of the facility has been integrated into a local ski hill, and pictures of the ski hill often have the tower in the background.  It's a great example of reusing and re-purposing buildings.
I made it there at dusk and snapped some pictures quickly.

Timmins GFA Building (on of two original Steelox buildings)

Timmins GFA Tower
One of few remaining Canadian dual usage radar / fire towers

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CFS Ramore GATR Site
Thanks to Mike I was able to locate the site of the GATR site, and with him acting as my guide, checked it out!

I mentioned previously that along with the Pinetree Line radar sites there were supporting facilities; air fields were created, mini-radar stations built to fill in the gaps in coverage, and powerful radio transmitters were built to communicate with overflying NORAD fighter interceptors.  Well, every Pinetree Line station (AFAIK), in the early 60s, had their radio transmitters/receivers upgraded.  They went from two separate buildings by the base (say within ~1-2 Km, and on the station's grounds) to one remotely located a bit farther away (say ~3-30Km).  The upgraded transceivers were more powerful than the previous gear, and they didn't want interference from the Radar, or visa-versa.  Until meeting Mike, who son knew exactly where it was, all I knew were these two hints, gleamed from the internet.


Hint #1

Narrative Report
RCAF Station Ramore, Ont.
2 Oct 61 to 31 May 62

"19 Mar 62
The GATR site located north-west of the station 17 miles distant by
road, was accepted from the contractor this date."

Source: National Archives of Canada

Meaning, the contractor finished the work and officially handed the keys on that day to DND.  They'd been working on the facility for about two years .

Hint #2

"I was stationed at Ramore from Jan '65 to Jul '71. Worked at the GATR site, which was located just off the Watabeag road."
-Rick Lean,
 Hanover, Ontario

Source: http://highway11.ca/content/Ramore-Original-Comments.htm

We found the site a little off the Watabeag Lake Road.  Since the facility hasn't been used since 1974, the woods have reclaimed the area, but the road, which is now a trail, is still passable.  

The roof was made of wood and tar paper, so it's falling apart; as well, things are growing on top of the building.   The concrete block looks to be in good shape.  Any idea of where the TDDL antennas were has been swallowed up by the bush; I'll need to try and investigate in the spring after the snow melts, but before the foliage gets in the way.  You can still find stumps of the antenna poles around, and lots of guy wires that dont go to anything.  The galvanized wire that is still on site looks perfect, it hasn't deteriorated at all.  Quite impressive!

Clearly viewable where the AN/FRT-49 Coax wire went through the wall
(Center Middle)

That solves a mystery that until now I didn’t have an answer for; proof that the GATR site was there, and proof that it is still standing! 
(Location: 48.431301,-80.486185)

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Mike Milinkovich's stories of the Mid-Canada Line

Last year I visited the former Troposcatter receiver site at Kempis Mountain for the first time, where the signal from Relay was received from the Mid-Canada Line farther north, and shunted to North Bay via land-line.  Realistically, I don't know how many other Mid-Canada Line related sites I'll be able to reach.  Hopfully Relay Ontario (MCL Site 060) next year, we'll see.

However, I've made contact with someone who worked on the Mid-Canada Line, is local to Ramore, and who's been able to pinpoint for me where the Ramore GATR Site was.  Mike has lots of stories about his time on the Mid-Canada Line.  The more stories I hear of the Mid-Canada Line and Pinetree Line, the more I realize there are vast volumes of untold Canadian stories that are waiting to become books, biographies, and screenplays.

Originally published on Larry Wilson's Mid-Canada Line "War Stories" page on his web site here and here I've reposted Mike Milinkovich's stories below, with Mike's permission.

I opened the MCL “War Stories” to read and was struck by how many people wrote of their experiences at 309 DDS! I’m not superstitious, but I really wonder if there were “spirits” other than those found in a bottle that made 309 DDS their home?

I was the first 309 DDS “tech” or the “Installation & Maintenance Representative” as Ma Bell called us. After graduating from the third wave from the MCL School in Montreal as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 20-year old I arrived on site in the early fall of 1956.

I lived in a tent for the first 3-4 months while the living quarters and equipment/power rooms were being built. After 53 years I would like to relate some of my experiences, events and occurrences that some may find interesting.

• The first time I ever flew in a single engine fixed wing aircraft was the flight from Knob Lake to 309 DDS lake head. The pilot seemed crazy to me. I got in the plane, sat right beside the pilot and we took off. In a few minutes he reached into his jacket pocket and took out a pocket book that he propped up somehow between his knees and the joy stick and we bounced along on what I thought was a rough flight until we floated down to land on the lake. He never said a word to me the whole time up in the air but just read his damn book, landed, came to a stop at the dock then told me to get my bags and get out of his plane!
• We had no water on site; water was brought in by two pails hanging down from a yoke carried by one of our Portuguese labourers from a lake about one mile downhill and one mile back up. I bet he developed the strongest legs in Canada as he did this for many hours every day!
• That lake was also full of speckled trout. I had a few artificial lures that never worked well so I got the idea of tying a small hook to a wooden match stick that I had shaved back to create “curls”. The first cast, a trout took it within seconds. I used those wooden match sticks as “trout flies” from then on!
• Washing clothes was a problem until we decided to use our cement mixer. It worked fine but it sure beat the heck out of our clothes!
• We had a burly looking cook who spent about 4 months at 309 DDS; he was a nice enough guy, especially as he was always mildly drunk and in good humour with the home brew he made from tomato juice. One day a helicopter dropped in with two Mounties on board. They took our cook away. He was wanted for multiple murders in Montreal!
• We had a “cookie” that was mildly mentally handicapped but a very good worker. Three “Newfy” steel riggers came and spent a little over a month erecting towers. From almost the first day that they arrived they teased the cookie mercilessly. The final morning when the Newfies were leaving and waiting for the helicopter, one of them apologized to the cookie and said they were sorry for teasing him and hoped he would forgive them. The cookie accepted their apology, said he forgave them, and also said from then on he would stop pissing in their coffee pot!
• The bush pilots flying supplies into our site were unbelievable. That first winter we had very heavy winds blowing day after day for weeks. This caused snow drifts at least 3 to 4 feet high that looked like waves on the lake where the planes normally landed. We were running really short of food and fuel so one of the pilots said he would try to land. He did, miraculously, without crashing and with a full load.
• 309 DDS was located in an area that was surrounded by a number of lakes, some fairly large. All of them had fantastic fishing. One spot I always wanted to try and fish was the Caniapiscau River. Although you could see the river from our site it was too far away to walk through the rough bush and up and down some fairly steep hills. At a guess, I think the river was about 8 to 10 miles from our site.
• One of the best fishing spots I used to go to quite often was to a large lake about 4 – 5 miles South West of our DDS site. My favourite spot was also the favourite spot of black bears. A narrow but deep creek ran into the lake at the location I usually fished. On both sides of the creek, foot paths were worn quite deep into the soil over the years by bears fishing in the spring for spawning suckers. When the ice started to melt off the lake and there was about 50 – 75 feet of open water you could catch beautiful lake trout each weighing anywhere from 10 to 25 pounds with almost every cast. Most of these I just let go and only brought back one or two because the 4 – 5 mile walk back to camp was uphill all the way!
• I had heard a story that one of the Installation & Maintenance reps that came after me, who was Australian, was killed by a black bear at 309 DDS. I often wondered if he was killed at “my” fishing spot. There certainly were a lot of bears around there but I never actually saw one; just their tracks, paths and claw marks where they marked their territory on trees.
• One of the very few times that I flew into Knob Lake I bought a shotgun. There were a lot of ptarmigans around the site that I wanted to hunt so I bought a Winchester pump action .410 shotgun. I had never seen a .410 pump action before. It was a beautiful little shotgun. Soon after I bought it I went hunting. It was really cold, at a guess about -30 with a pretty stiff breeze that probably created a wind chill of around -40. I quickly came upon a covey of ptarmigan, about 4 or 5. I released the safety, drew a bead and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened! I thought the shell must be bad so I tried to pump in another. The pump action was jammed! I couldn’t do a darn thing. The birds all flew away. Ptarmigan are not afraid of humans and you can usually get close to them but eventually they do move away. I was so disgusted with my pretty little shotgun that I traded it for a short wave radio a week or so later to one of the construction crew. That was a dumb thing to do but I was young and could be considered “unworldly” if not downright stupid. The problem with the shotgun was that I had used ordinary gun grease. I should have used graphite gun grease! The grease I did use simply froze in the extremely low temperature and completely jammed the shotgun. I have never seen a .410 pump action Winchester shotgun since that time way back in 1956. It was an unusual shotgun that I wished I had today as I now live in the country with a lot of good partridge hunting close by.

These are just some of the stories from a time in my life when every day was a wonderful challenge and every experienced was relished. I felt so lucky that I was able to travel to the far north and see a part of Canada that few Canadians ever have a chance to see. After the Mid Canada line, I worked on the DEW line on Baffin Island and Winisk and finally on the Pine tree line where I visited each military radar site in Canada from Holberg on the tip of Vancouver Island to Newfoundland. I was on loan to the DND Inspection Services on the Pine tree line. It was during one of my Mid Canada assignments South of Matheson Ontario at site 070, Kempis Mountain, that I met and married the most beautiful and wonderful girl in the world and we are still together. Below is a picture of her at 68 years old as the “BRM Belles” Red Hat Queen at the Matheson Fall Fair.

Mike also happens to be the Mayor of the township surrounding Ramore; The Township of Black River-Matheson.  Since Mike worked along the Mid-Canada Line and at Kempis Mountain, it seemed appropriate that in 2009 when the site was shut down, he was involved, and wrote this.

The Final Chapter for Mid Canada Line Site 070
By: Mike Milinkovich

Mike Milinkovich August 28th 2013 @ Kempis Mountain

November 12, 2009 is the day that the final chapter was written about the “Cold War” that began just after WW II between the Soviet Union and the Western allies. I began work at Kempis Mountain in the late 1950’s and participated in the ceremony on November 12th that signalled the final chapter in the history of “Mid-Canada Line site 070” in the Township of Black River-Matheson.

The establishment of the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) coincided with the flight of Russia’s Sputnik I (the first man-made object shot into space orbit) and the successful launch of the first Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The Canadian and American government’s agreement to create NORAD to counter a Soviet nuclear-armed bomber threat was reached in August 1957 and formally signed in May 1958.

Subsequently the three early warning radar detection systems built in the late 1950’s, the U.S.-built Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, the Canadian built and manned Mid-Canada Line (MCL), and the jointly erected Pinetree Line became critical NORAD components.

In 1955-56, Kempis Mountain, also known as Mid-Canada Line site 070 was built. Site 070 was the last link of a chain of Mid-Canada Line communications sites that stretched north to Hudson Bay. Site 070 was not a radar site but a communication site linked to similar sites at site 060 (also called Relay and located 80 miles North of Cochrane), site 050 at Ft. Albany and finally to site 415 located at Cape Henrietta Maria on the western shore of James Bay.

Data that was collected by the Mid-Canada Line Doppler Detection Sites (Radar sites) was transmitted south from site 070 by land line to the “Hole” in North Bay. The “Hole”, as it was called, was the co-located headquarters for the northern region of NORAD. The other NORAD headquarters site was located in the Cheyenne Mountains in Colorado. Together, these two sites controlled North American defences against potential threats from the air by analyzing data and information from the northern radar lines to determine if jets had to be scrambled to meet potential threats from attacking forces.

During the construction of site 070 and during the years it was manned, people from the Township of Black River-Matheson played a big part. The road up Kempis Mountain and the levelling of the site for construction was done primarily by the late Vic Hembruff’s company now called R. J. Lougheed Trucking Ltd. and currently owned by Bob Lindsay. Much of the concrete work and construction was completed by a company called H & D Construction and owned at the time by the late Ernie Dambrowitz and Floyd Hembruff. Sadly this company no longer exists. Many people from the towns of Holtyre, Matheson, Ramore, Shillington and Val Gagne also worked for years at various occupations at the site.

Unfortunately one of the dangerous legacies left behind at all the sites across Canada including site 070 is an organic chemical compound called “Polychlorinated biphenyl” or as commonly known, PCBs. This chemical was commonly used for many years in various types of electronic equipment installed at all the sites. In addition, tests were conducted to identify Hydrocarbons and metals and when found were removed.

You may ask, “So what’s the big deal?” The big deal is that PCBs are classified as “persistent organic pollutants” meaning PCBs never degrade or disappear but persist in the environment and accumulate in human and animal tissue. The only way to get rid of it from the environment is to remove it and destroy it by various methods at specially designed facilities. PCBs can cause serious health problems in humans and other mammals such as lowering of the immune system, birth defects, health problems such as cancer and diabetes or a failure by males to reproduce.

The team that successfully completed the cleanup operation over a relatively short timeframe began work on site August 26, 2009 and completed the project in November 2009. The team included representatives from the Matachewan First Nation (MFN), SNC-Lavalin Inc. (SLI), Golder Associates Innovative Application (GAIA), an affiliate of GAIA’s called Golder Associates Limited (GAL), AirZOne One (OZO), and the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR).

By the end of the project the team had removed over 17,000 tons of material from Kempis Mountain. This material was trucked to sites in Quebec and other locations in Ontario for proper disposal. In total 2342 samples of soil, leachate, hydrocarbons, concrete, bedrock, PCB wipe tests for non-porous materials and water were tested for contaminates.

As Mayor, I was honoured to be asked to participate in the closing ceremonies to represent the Township of Black River-Matheson and also from a personal perspective as one of the “survivors” whose site 070 story began over 50 years ago. From 1956 to 1961 it was my privilege to have worked on all three Radar lines; MCL, DEW and Pinetree. I worked in every Province in Canada from the tip of Vancouver Island at Holdberg to Newfoundland and Labrador, in the Northwest Territories and further north above the Arctic Circle on Baffin Island. This experience profoundly cemented my deep love and appreciation of this wonderful country of ours at an early age.

We should all be thankful that the Federal and Provincial governments have agreed to work together to fund the cleanup of this cold war era mess so future generations of Canadians will be protected. In particular the Ontario government’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and Minister Donna Cansfield should be congratulated for becoming the lead agency in coordinating the cleanup efforts.

I wish them luck and God speed in cleaning up all the other sites in Northern Ontario.

Mike Milinkovich, Mayor
Township of Black River-Matheson

Visit to Ramore AS / RCAF Station Ramore / CFS Ramore

Ramore was first operated by the USAF, then the RCAF, and was operational from 1953 to 1974.  It was sold to a lodge, which failed as a business, and parts of the station still remain standing today.  On my previous trip I had only investigated the operations site at the top of Lava Mountain, but this time, with CE, camped overnight, did some light painting and low light digital photography (him, not me), and investigated the residential site below.  The dump is still operational at Ramore, so there is some light local traffic.  We saw some other trucks pass by while we were investigating the garages and maintenance buildings, but I have no idea where they were going.  It was the middle of hunting season, so I suspect several people have little back roads they like to frequent to find that "perfect spot" to hunt at which they keep going back to... legally or illegally!

I was surprised to find the barracks falling to pieces and and the parade square in fine shape.

To the West of the massive generator building, there was a covered concrete tank, very large, with vent pipes and an inlet of some kind going to it.  I'm not sure what it was, but we didn't go down into the darkness.

In the Southern-middle radome building (shown below) there were several square pools of water which seem to be openings into a basement of lower level.  Poking around with a stick indicated that they were quite deep (6ft-8ft+), draining them and getting down there seem like a good idea for next year; but I'm going to need a gas/diesel powered trash/semi-trash water pump!  I'll be passing the hat to see if anyone wants to lend me one, as I really don't need to *own* one.

Lessons Learned

• As before, bring more air photos and satellite imagry.  You can never bring too many air photos.
• Sleeping with the wind swinging creaky shutters on the generator building is crazy-spooky.

Post-Trip Research
As with the pictures from Senneterre, I did some more digging in the archives of the pinetreeline.org site (provided by my new friends! THANKS GUYS!) and below are pictures salvaged from the sadly now defunct site.  RIP Ren.

CE and I saw several of these locations, and the vintage pictures fill in a substantial number of gaps.  There was a lot of "what was this?"  and "why is there a hole here" - well lots of it is explained when you see the pictures of the time.

The view of the base from the south in 1959 shows the generator building, operations site, new radar and radomes on the far right and left.

Aerial photo of Operations site from Beaver aircraft, May 1959
Courtesy Ren L'Ecuyer

 The view of the domestic site.  You can see the garages, mess, H building and guard post quite well.

Aerial photo of Domestic Site from 4,200 feet, May 9th, 1962
Courtesy Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.

 

 Here we have the operations bldg at the top of Lava Mountain
Toward the top is the road that heads to the GATR (or perhaps TX/RX) site

Aerial photo of Operations site from 4,200 feet, May 9th 1962
Courtesy Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.

 This is a fantastic vantage point showing the entire layout of the base
Including the fuel tanks which are no longer there, but the berms around them are.

Aerial close up of Operations site, May 9th, 1962
Courtesy Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.

This greenhouse is no longer there, from the picture it was located beside the parade square near the "H" buildings

Greenhouse, August 21st 1999
Courtesy Bob Agar

Where this fireplace was, which I believe was in the combined mess, is now a hole. 
Yes, someone stole the fireplace!
Wish I'd thought of it...

Unknown remains in the domestic site - 21 August 1999
Courtesy Bob Agar.

Same spot, other side of the fireplace, and showing the mess kitchen in the background. 
The supports on the left, presumably for a roof, have fallen over since this picture was taken.

Unknown remains in the domestic site - 21 August 1999
Courtesy Bob Agar.

This picture shows the view from the shipping door across what is now a pool of water.
I think it shows fairly certainly that there is a lower level to the building.

Unidentified buildings in Operations site - 21 August 1999
Courtesy Bob Agar.

 The vegetation prevents any kind of picture like this from being taken today

That picture has been taken facing SW

Diesel Power House on the "Hill" - February 1956
Courtesy Ralph Gronlund.

 I think this picture has been taken facing West.

The radome building on the right has been levelled, the one on the left still stands (sans radome)

Search and height finder radar towers and radomes, February 1956
Courtesy Ralph Gronlund.

 I now know that this picture was taken at The Poderosa - the rec bldg by the lake

We drove by, but didn't take any pictures ourselves.

The Ponderosa is now being used by a camp, and looks to be in good repair

Cpl. Al Amyotte (without shirt) and unidentified Radar Techs at Ponderosa - June 1972
Courtesy Margaret Renaud.

 Notice the stone chimney?

Left rear is Cpl. Brian "Tex" Redden - June 1972
Courtesy Margaret Renaud.

 The stone chimney is clearly attached to this...

Karen and Joey Renaud sitting on the fireplace mantle in the Ponderosa - June 1972
Courtesy Margaret Renaud.

The same chimney can be seen on the left
This picture is recent, but since the fire, it has clearly been fixed up.

Remains of the Ponderosa - September 2001
Courtesy Ian Curran.

This picture was probably taken facing NW

Don Church in front of the entrance to the Operations building - July 1955
Courtesy Bob Miller.

 

 I believe this picture has been taken facing NE, and to the left of the picture you see a ~100,000 Gallon Diesel storage tank, which had a berm around it.  We found the berm, the tank is long gone!

(L-R) Iverson, Bumpus, Skkags, Jake Jacobs - August 1955
Courtesy Bob Miller.

 We did not head over to the GATR site, as it would have been too tight for the full-sized Suburban
Trees and plans have completely taken over the area, an ATV-sized trail remains of what was once a road.

Motorcycle parked at the GATR site (looking north) - June 1970
Courtesy Rick Lean.

I didn't see this building at all.

Unidentified building just across from the MSE 9 bay garage, on the left as you start to go up the hill to the Operations Site - August 2002.
Courtesy Bob Agar.

 This shows where the gas pumps used to be.  As the asphalt hasn't been disturbed, you can be sure the 2000 gallon gas tank and 1000 gallon diesel tank are still there under the surface.

The nine bay garage - 24 February 1964
Courtesy ADC Museum.

 This is the view shot East toward the combined mess, all the buildings pictured are now gone.
Only foundations and memories remain.

And the snow keeps piling up - 24 February 1964
Courtesy ADC Museum.

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Cold War Camping - Val D'Or, Senneterre, Ramore, North Bay

To update you on what I've been up to... The Val D'Or/Senneterre/Belleterre trip happened (October 19th - 22nd)!  But without Belleterre... There were a few on-the-fly changes to the camping trip; we couldn't get to the Senneterre GATR, and scratched Belleterre off the list after a major brake failure on the Suburban.  Both will need to be re-attempted in coming trips.

Here (below) is (more or less) where we went; I'm going to break out stories of the trip into multiple blog entries so they can be easily searched for down the road.


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Overall my impression of Val D'Or was much better than I expected.  It is clearly a booming town.  There is clearly money being spent there by the local workers, the local companies, and the local municipal government who's getting the taxes from everyone.  Good for you Val D'Or, you're not the armpit town I was expecting!  I mean that as a complement, honestly; from all the mining I was expecting a very dirty run down town - it was anything but!  Another surprising thing, to me, being from Montreal, Quebec - I was expecting at least some of the people in customer service to sneer, look down their nose, or otherwise be indignant to my traveling partner who spoke mainly English.  However, at no time anywhere in Val D'Or (or Senneterre) were we treated poorly, or given anything but welcoming smiles, when speaking English we were replied to in their best English.  I felt very much welcome.  Val D'Or was a picturesque town, with a busy main street, lots of parking, and clearly hopping with a booming economy driven by the local mining operations.  I'd go back again and again, I was very impressed with Val D'Or.  It surpassed all my expectations... and the food was *fantastic*.

As we failed to get to Belleterre, we headed to Ramore, and took a lot of pictures of what is left of Ramore AS / RCAF Station Ramore / CFS Ramore.  It was my first time checking out some of the domestic site, as the last time I concentrated on the operations site.

CFS Senneterre's buildings have has some holes punched in them, but generally they are intact, minus the Radomes, and provide a good idea of the footprint of a base.  The sloppy fence line allowed us to take pictures of things we shouldn't have on Telebec property.  No harm, no foul, I say...

On the way past North Bay (with 50% of the Suburban's brakes blown...) we stopped at CFB North Bay's BOMARC site to take pictures.  If we'd had more time, I would have talked to the owner and gone through the front door, but as it was I approached from the back and took pictures through the fence.

Here are all the pictures I have, I haven't excluded any, they are not very artsy, they are meant to document the trip :)

The Whirlwind Tour of Northern Ontario

I departed from Carp, Ontario at ~0100hrs on Saturday August 18th, and headed through North Bay to Kempis Mountain, my first stop.  There had been a troposcatter repeater at the top of Kempis Mountain to feed the signal from the Mid Canada Line (MCL) to North Bay.  After the MCL was shut down, the site was derelict, but other peaks of the mountain still had antennas on them - so the entire mountain wasn't shut down.  In 2009, as part of an environmental cleanup, the entire troposcatter site was dug up, and nothing at all was left behind, except a brass plaque on the cliff.  I wasn't expecting anything there, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found a fire tower on one hilltop, and an old Microwave repeater on another - the microwave repeater, from the architecture of the tower and the adjoining buildings, are surely military circa 1950s.  This makes sense, as all the pinetree line sites were joined by microwave towers which communicated hilltop to hilltop between each other and (I presume) down to hard wired locations further south.

CFS Ramore

From Kempis Mountain I travelled North on HWY11 just a little further to the former Ramore AS / RCAF Station Ramore / CFS Ramore.  Ramore had been built by the USAF in the 1950s, and it's architecture was subtly different than the Canadian built RCAF Station Parent I visited last year (and again this spring).  Ramore was sold to a private interest after it was shut down, so it wasn't demolished by the Canadian government as some of the sites were.  Some of the buildings have been razed to the ground, but a significant part of the operational site on top of the mountain still stands today.  I was very excited to see it, as I'd seen pictures of the derelict buildings taken by previous urban explorers.  The highlight of Ramore is the asbestos "Canada Tile" clad generator building, which doesn't have any windows left, but does show where the 5 massive Diesel generators powered the complex from.  It's an impressive warehouse-sized building.  Parts of the operations building and some kind of transformer building are also intact, as well as one of the radome buildings which now has an antenna on the top (purpose unknown).  Taking my truck where only ATVs should go, I also found the former COMMs building, hidden on another hilltop - but visible to the discerning eye using Google Maps sat imagry.  Some of the buildings at the base of the mountain have been re-purposed by local interests and seem inhabited; I didn't scour the entire area, I was on a short timeline.  I headed North (West) on HWY11 to stop next at Moonbeam to get a picture of the UFO, then on to Lowther.

CFS Lowther

Lowther AS / RCAF Station Lowther / CFS Lowther, as had been pictured in other people's photos online, was totally scraped off the face of the planet after it was decommissioned.  The only thing left is asphalt and concrete foundations, and even some of them seem to have been dug up.  I went to the highest point and got a few pictures, but there isn't much to see.  It felt good to know I'd seen it, but I was disappointed I couldn't see more of what had been.  I did notice across HWY11 there was an antenna tower, perhaps a microwave antenna tower... and sure enough there was a rusting microwave dish toward the top, and a 2nd one that had fallen off (!) the tower, and lay on the ground below.  The Steelox equipment building matches the dimensions and construction of the others, so I will assume it is a microwave repeater of military origin.  The day was getting late - I headed off towards Oba, but I had to give my exploring partner RH a call... but there was no Cell signal...  I visited the next LCBO I could find and asked for directions to the closest Phone Booth (SEE, I ASKED FOR DIRECTIONS!!) - it was a couple of blocks away... and after getting even more change from the corner store I was able to afford the long distance charges (HIGHWAY ROBBERY!)  RH was on her way, and I was on my way, to Hornepayne Ontario to meet up.

 

As I made my way to Hornepayne, which I would get to via HWY631, I passed Constance Lake.  Constance Lake is a native reserve ~100-150 miles south of where an F-102 crashed and it's pilot went missing on December 17th 1959, and is still missing to this day.  I suspect I'll be back there another day, looking for information.  HWY11 by this time was sparsely populated with trucking traffic, and once I turned off on HWY631 all that dropped off, and I saw very few cars or trucks.  Hornepayne was about an hour to an hour and half from Lowther, and after driving through town I eventually found the Esso (the meeting spot) and waited for RH. ...I might have indulged and grabbed a nap...

RH had found a hitchiker along the way who was headed up the 631, after saying our goodbyes to him, we packed up the truck, parked her little SUV, and headed to find food.  I wont say where we went for food, but it was in Hornepayne, and the food was... lacking.  

Probably not a good idea in a 2WD truck without a winch

We headed off toward Oba at 2100hrs on August 18th, as the darkness was falling.  Oba was only supposed to be an hour away, and setting up camp there, or at Hornepayne, was going to be equally challenging; so why not get closer to where we wanted to be?  After two hours on the dirt and grass covered back roads of rural-middle-of-nowhere Ontario I saw a berm ahead and hammered the brakes.  Getting out and investigating we found a dirt covered culvert (that was the berm), and some marshy ground past the culvert - then the road continued ahead... RH, who didn't want to be called a "Debbie Downer" for mentioning it, said she'd rather wait till morning and re-assess the situation.  She was right, getting stuck 2hrs by car away from Hornepayne would really suck.  My truck is a 1999 Dodge Ram 1500 Sport 2WD with Posi and the 5.9L Magnum engine.  It's heavy, and it can haul ass - but when it gets stuck, it's stuck for good.  I'd brought straps and a come-along, but none the less, getting stuck at 2300hrs in the middle of nowhere, in a swamp, would have been bad. 
We set up camp and waited till morning.

That's as close as we got to the Oba Gap Filler Site. ~2Km away
Can't you see the fire tower over the trees?

The next morning I was up and checking out the location at 0645.  RH had been right, it was mushy for about 50ft past the culvert, and I couldn't tell how deep the mud was.  There had clearly been someone with a truck-width vehicle through here, the tracks were evident - but I couldn't tell if they went through in 4WD, or if 4WD would be necessary.  We turned around and found an alternate route, the Oba Cutoff was a marked road half way back to Hornepayne - we'd missed it in the dark.  The Oba cutoff wasn't a short route, it took us across a scary looking bridge (the route actually took us across at least 3 or 4 scary bridges) and eventually dumped us at Oba.  By now I was beginning to have doubts of the Garmin, Google, Topo, Satellite photos, and provincial maps I'd consulted before the trip.  Many of the roads which were marked on the topo map as a solid red lines (driveable) had deteriorated to a condition that would barely allow ATV traffic.  After circling Oba, we headed East along what I thought was a road that would take us to a logging road, which would take us within 1km of the Oba Gap Filler Site.  Unfortunately, I now know the road on the topo map isn't the same as the road I'd seen on the satellite view, a road which isn't on the topographic map at all.  The road we took became impassable, covered by swamp.  At one time it was a passable road, so said the topo map, but today it no longer supports vehicular traffic.  There were large areas along the road which have been clearcut and now have no trespassing & pesticide use signs - we tried to head south through them, but none of those would let us all the way through either.  We had pretty much given up by the time we headed back toward Hearst, when we saw a little back road... it turns out that was the road I'd been trying to get to before, and we were then on the road I'd thought we'd been on all along...  Once we were along a couple of kilometres, road conditions blocked us, with a bridge that had fallen apart, so we walked the last three kilometres to a place where we could see the fire tower, where the Gap Filler Steelox buildings should be... 2.1km away (we were standing at 48.99823, -83.93338).  It was getting late and we had to head back to Hornepayne, via Hearst - a significant distance, so we called it quits and turned around.

I don't know when we got to Hornepayne, but it was really late - after seeing RH to her vehicle, I headed to the rail yard in Hornepayne to watch the trains and see if I could get some pictures of the night operations... however, without a tripod, my plan was foiled.  I did witness a change of train engineers around 0500 - and I had a nap before heading toward The Sault.  My route back would be along the 17, with frequent stops for bio breaks, stretching, and some napping.  

By 1730 I was in Sudbury, checking out CFS Falconbridge.  Unfortunately, the gate had just been closed - I spoke to one of the employees, and he thought if I talked to the owner who runs the place I would be able to get permission to ascend the mountain while the facility was open (a nine to five operation)  I have his number, and will give him a call before I go back the next time.

I was home by 0100 on Tuesday August 21st.  That's ~2300km in 72hrs - not bad!

Things I shoulda coulda woulda done differently...

1. Build a Fire   
   I hadn't anticipated making a fire, didn't have a bucket for water, didn't really know where we were camping, and didn't want to attract the attention of the locals if they were fire-sensitive/paranoid.  I should have built one anyway.
2. Bring different maps and satellite imagery
   Someone somewhere must have better maps of the area.
3. Get a handheld GPS with a screen
   It would have been hugely beneficial to have a proper LCD screened GPS while we were hiking to the location of the gap filler site, pre-loaded with all significant waypoints and points of interest.
4. Blow some shit up
   We should have shot some cans at the sandpit we found on Sunday.
   In hindsight, there was nobody around for a hundred kilometres in every direction.
5. Carry a compass at all times
   After the last unexpected stop that took us within 2km of the gap filler site, I was disoriented and couldn't tell if the direction we were pointing was in fact the correct direction of the gap filler site.  This was partially because I didn't have the Google Map Satellite image that I'd familiarized myself with, and partially because I didn't have a handheld GPS or compass with me - they were in the truck.  I was going off of memory as to what the fuzzy Google satellite image looked like.
6. Satellite imagery trumps MNR Topographic Maps.
   Lesson learned
7. Know when to hold them.  Know when to fold them.
   We didn't give up on the Gap Filler site early enough, and RH was late getting back to her vehicle - my fault for poor judgment regarding time, speed, road quality and distance. 
   I'll know better for next time.

Next Time?

Yes, next time.  Going in that same direction there are still several gap filler sites to see, and a few Pinetree Line stations too.  

View Points of Interest Aug 18-19 2012 in a larger map

The trip, minus all the driving between Hornepayne and Oba

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