Chibougamau, QC

This article is dedicated to the men and women who served in the SAGE Stations throughout Canada and the United States.

There was a snap in the late night air. Ice-covered snow crunched beneath my feet. It was December, and winter in this northern circle was in full bloom. The midnight moon slipped through the silhouetted pines, casting intermittent patches of light and shadows on the snow-covered ground. The radar domes taking shape provided a spherical backdrop to the annex building in front of me. All around me, silence had descended over the mountain top site, so that I could hear the sounds of my body shivering against my winter gear. It was bitter cold. The minus 50 F air was so sharp that it seemed to cut right through my mukluks and freeze my feet without warning. This was 1962 and RCAF Station Chibougamau, was under construction in northern Quebec. The towers of this early-warning Radar Station were beginning to thrust upwards out of this pine-topped mountain. Hundreds of feet below was a small lake and the road that led a few miles into the small mining town of Chibougamau nearby. This was one of the strategic radar sites designated for the Semi–Automatic Ground Environment stations known as "SAGE" on Canada’s Pine Tree and Mid Canada defense lines. And, that mountaintop in Chibougamau was home to a SAGE site that was about capture unwanted attention.

The evening shift was finished. I had actually come on shift early and was exhausted and looking forward to my midnight meal and a warm bed. I paused at the car door to look out at the silhouetted winter scape. There’s a spine-tingling eeriness to a winter night this close to the Arctic Circle. We had seen a lot of wildlife here and I concentrated my night vision on what I thought might be a fox darting in and out of view as the moon moved across the sky. As I opened the car door I felt some foreboding apprehension about my midnight run down the steep, frozen road traversing the mountain. I had never felt this before and would have paused longer, if I had known what lay ahead of me on this particular night.

Months had passed since I had made the journey to Chibougamau from Toronto. I had caravaned to Chibougamau with my friends, Ed and Margaret Armstrong and their young son. It proved to be a perilous trip in passenger cars and took several days to complete the 900 miles north of Quebec City. Often, we drove over miles of corduroy log roads sinking deep into the permafrost. Finally arriving in town, we laughed at the paradox …an image of 20^th century pioneers in Detroit City Calistoga Wagons on their way to the new frontier…except we were on our way to install cutting-edge technology to save the North American nations with no notion of fighting Indians or anybody else.

My job as a Sage Site technician for Burroughs was exciting but extremely peculiar in many ways. It was 1961 and the cold war was progressing rapidly. Khrushchev had angrily banged his shoe in front of Nixon on his visit to Moscow, missile build-up in Cuba was hitting the press, and the US defense system practice air raids were taking place in schools. This was a few years after the Berlin Airlift in which Canada had played a key role. And now, fear of impending US-Soviet nuclear war had even spread to these remote regions of Canada. But we gained peace of mind from the fact that we were hundreds of miles away from the big cities. In the event of war, we would not experience any direct confrontation, or so we thought. In many ways, we technicians were technological mercenaries in the Cold War roving from site to site as needed, installing the latest and greatest science had to offer. Our work in these locations was interlinking the whole SAGE System. SAGE was politically designed to restore inner peace among the citizens of North America. And, militarily it was ordained to give as much tactical advance warning as possible of unfriendly missiles and aircraft penetrating the peaceful skies of North America.

Orbiting the earth for the first time, Sputnik had been launched by the Russians a few years before. This was man’s first major contribution to outer space. And, it was not American. Instant awe by North Americans at the scientific accomplishment quickly gave way to national insecurity. Fear gripped even the calmest of sorts. The sanctity North American continent had been violated…and at first the public turned on itself like a victim of rape. Accusations of laggardness, and sleeping at the switch pounded in the press. Politicians turned on the bureaucrats, forcibly pushing for secure solutions. . Radio stations aired the ominous signals emanating from Sputnik overhead. It was as though the Russians were audibly rubbing Siberian salt into our self-inflicted wound. Every night Sputnik echoed…gotcha …..gotcha eeeingmmm…gotcha …gotcha…eeeingmmm pinging at the sensory conscious of the citizenry below as it streaked across the North American skies. Lacking viable concepts to compete with Sputnik, the US government turned to research centers and universities seeking technological ways to combat this not so silent enemy circling the globe.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT as it is known, was one of the world’s leading research centers that the US Government retained for this mission. Their role in concert with Burroughs as the SAGE Site Defense System Computer contractor was to advance the state-of-the-art technology of the Univac digital computer to the next level. The work was accomplished in concert with IBM and resulted in the AN/FS Q-7, the flagship of the fleet of new defense computers nicknamed Whirlwind. Years of work compressed by the Sputnik crisis also gave birth to a sister in the fleet, the Burroughs ANS FT-2. Smaller than its big sister, the T-2 packed its technological marvel into 10,000 multivibrator circuits on "cards", parallel channels, and safety systems altogether with a self-contained standby power supply. Complete with a central processing brain whose drum memory whirled endlessly at 30,000 rpm; messages were encrypted and read by sensitive heads whose only job was to ensure the insertion and removal of binary information. That is a "1" or an absence of a "1" which in fact shone forth as a recognizable "zero". It was staggering. The whole T-2 was housed in a SAGE Annex building located on the Radar Station and interconnected with the range and height finding radars as well as the azimuth detection systems. The T-2 annex was big enough to hold several Greyhound buses side by side. Due to the heat generated by the filaments in the vacuum tubes, the SAGE Annex required constant cooling even its Arctic Circle locales. In times when the T–2 operational systems were shut down, the Pine Tree Line SAGE Annex was instantly transformed into a walk-in freezer.

What a paradox….the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile ("ICBM") equipped with a nuclear warhead, was one of the most sophisticated weapons ever produced by mankind. It was capable of reducing a great portion of New York City to a parking lot. Yet despite its previously undetectable "incoming" capability at unfathomable supersonic speed, the 60’s technology applied to remote radar stations was about to combat all of that. The interconnection of all the SAGE systems in Northern Canada with NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs, at least ensured some advance notice of the threat of the penetration of the deadly Soviet ICBM’s. The Soviet bear’s Goliath was now stealthily monitored. Goliath was detected and reduced to an electronically viewed label marked as a "one" or a "zero’’. " How bloody marvelous", I used to think. The Soviets invest all this technology with world shaking incredibly destructive powers, and here some steel cabinets, 20,000 vacuum tubes or so headlining ingeniously arranged "and" n’ "or" gates, intermingled with a few telephone relays, some pin connector patch boards, and an overlay of a little clutter mapping to separate wheat from the chaff and viola! ….Soviet ICBM you’re ones and zeros all neatly arranged in a Distant Early Warning – "DEW" system coded 52-bit message. Each message was shot down the transmission pike at the speed of light to "Mom" in the mountain at Colorado Springs. Wow! It was the electronic equivalent of silently bringing a supersonic freight train to its knees with a child’s hand-held flashlight.

But the SAGE flashlight had control and command; early, its electronic sensors coupled to those Radomes detected and illuminated the thrust of the incoming ICBM. The systems quietly rotated and processed the speed, height and azimuth of the unwelcome enemy. If the unwanted visitor entered North American airspace and executed a certain speed and moved in any direction, SAGE said you have an unfriendly….and in its 52 bit message, it signaled it’s receiver to do something about it. SAGE had sufficiently advanced technology and represented a major breakaway from the military doctrine of all prior time. SAGE signified a transition from a human regional combat commander decision making process to a vertical uplink – downlink functional control, with multiple inputs, variables and exigencies processed by a marvel of a man-made machine. This was the land-based stealth of the times with a capacity to not only detect unwanted international violations of North American airspace but also deliver the meat for deployment decisions. This response to Sputnik was developed by MIT and its spin off Mitre organization together with IBM, Burroughs, Western Electric and Federal Electric. Development and installation was accomplished in a mere 6 years. Advanced well beyond its time, SAGE heralded binary coded message data link technology, video tube message operator presentation, and in 1962, the introduction of the magnetic core memory on the backside of the transistor developed at Bell Labs. SAGE also spawned multiple other marvels for the budding computer world.

SAGE had reduced the Sputnik ping of fear; Canadian and American self-confidence was rapidly returning. People were thinking less about purchasing nuclear bomb shelters, which had been introduced as residential add-ons in the 50’s. This was the now the 60’s. John Kennedy determined that we were going to moon. NASA was our lead sled dog and we were not about to be stalled in our pursuit. No one would undermine our national security, not the Russians or anyone else. The political and psychological effect of SAGE set the Soviets back on their heels. The significant edge achieved by SAGE was doing its part to restore North American dominance worldwide. From the counterintelligence point of view, we were on the rapid rise. No wonder the Soviets wanted it destroyed, damaged or delayed at any cost .

As I opened the car door, the moon glanced off my mirror and shot a beam backwards toward the station powerhouse. For a, moment, my mind rolled back to events of three days before. The T-2 installation team had received a call to undertake one of the power system tests designed to determine if the T-2 Standby Power activation systems were functioning. We also wanted to confirm whether the systems would handshake properly with the on-site power house. As the station powerhouse technician shouted his last instruction into the phone, I conveyed the signal to our crew to begin the various defined power test procedures.

Mid way through the tests, there was a tremendous roar and explosion. Parking was very tight on the top of the mountain. Adjacent to the station powerhouse, weeks of preparation had laid the groundwork for removing the mountain cap rock to make way for additional hilltop parking. We had watched the rock drilling with a lot of interest. Site personnel wondered at the time just how the contractor was planning to safely dynamite in this confined area. Our attention was peaked since this rock, which was about to be returned to dust was but 100 yards from the SAGE Annex. This safety of this big bang we learned was tied to the blanket of special sand, several feet thick that covered the drilled and charged rock. The explosion was to be thus controlled and no fragments were to escape from under the blanket of sand. After the implosion, it was a simple task for the power equipment to remove the debris and level the lot to make way for multiple more cars.

Silence struck in the first two seconds following the blast. Lights in the SAGE Annex dimmed and we began to loose voltage to our computer system. I was trying to decipher the operator’s yells coming over the telephone still connected to the powerhouse. Almost immediately, his voice was drowned out by excruciating groans from the T-2. I had witnessed overloaded equipment before, but had not heard anything quite like this. My God, the computer had been fully up at the time. Due to the gradual loss of power from the powerhouse main feed and the futile attempts to go to standby, the whole computer was experiencing a lowering of voltage without going into shut down mode. This mechanized groaning continued for another agonizing few seconds before some right minded soul inside the Annex hit the emergency off switch. I ran out across the snow-covered lot to the powerhouse. The cap rock, unfettered by the blanket of sand, had explosively launched into the mid-afternoon sky. Obeying all laws of gravity, the rock began slowing, changing direction and rapidly descending to earth through the roof of the Powerhouse. The building was badly damaged, but the power equipment survived unscathed for the most part. The operator was scared out of his whit’s by the unannounced blast; he momentarily recovered just before pieces of the rock joined him in the powerhouse control room. As panic set in, he turned the vernier he was controlling for the tests, unwittingly lowering the voltage to the SAGE computer.

Amazingly, the T-2 survived with minor relay setting problems. The drum memory remained undamaged and all was able to return to normal operations within the next two days. But it was another in a series of wake up calls on the site. The Chibougamau site was a complex collection of well engineered equipment, systems, and components physically located in radar domes, control rooms, administrative and auxiliary buildings. These had all been laid out geographically on the mountain top with precision and discipline. Nothing was much different on this Site from the numbers of others just like it spread throughout Canadian and the US SAGE System. Oh, there were a few things that were different from what I had encountered on some of the other installations. But there was something far different happening that we did not understand at first. We who worked on the T-2 were yet to know of its impact to our schedule and cost.

Chibougamau was remote and situated on top of a well-elevated conical shaped mountain. The equipment and station powerhouse required cooling water and pretty substantial amounts of it. Fortunately, the military planners had done their job well. Immediately adjacent to the bottom of the mountain was a small but deep lake. It was one of those bodies of water remaining in the glacial cuts through the rock formations in this part of Canada. At this latitude, 900 miles or so north of Quebec City and a only a few hundred miles from the Arctic Circle, the weather remains open but for a few months of the year. Winters come in early fall and stay well beyond their welcome in the spring. Good planning dictates that all underground piping is cut and backfilled before the frost. And so it was with the cooling water system piping. The engineering challenge here was to move water constantly from the lake up the to the top of the mountain alongside the winding and twisting road that traversed the mountain. To accomplish this, a small but good-sized water pumping station was built at the lake’s edge; the water was heated by propane-fueled systems and pumped through a few miles of pipe to the top. The terminus was a storage and distribution system that pushed critically needed cooling water to the systems on the mountain top site.

For weeks in our daily drive up the mountain , we were able to witness the progress of the pipe installation crews. As winter closed in, the crews were nearing the top having completed the sometimes perilous installation using a D-9 Cat to pull the pipe installation equipment backwards up the steep and uneven incline. We cheered them on daily particularly as they got close to completing their hazardous work under flurries of snow and ice crystals. There was a topping out ceremony to cap off their excellent work, which had been accomplished under extremely difficult conditions. The cooling water supply was terminated, and the pumping station was ready to energize and commence the hydro testing prior to operation.

About this time, a month or so before the cap rock powerhouse incident, the Site Construction Superintendent roared through the Sage Annex early one morning. He was on the run and apparently responding to some emergency up on the Height Finder dome. The dome steel support structure was nearing completion with a plan to have it enclosed before the onset of winter. Construction crews labored twenty-four hours a day on three shifts under wraps draped over the unfinished structure. I knew some of the guys working there from our association in town and occasionally seeing them on site as we ran cabling to the various radar and power interfaces for the T-2. "God, another accident", I thought seeing the agonizing look on the Super’s face. We had had our share of accidents up to this point at Chibougamau. Some minor, nuisance type events others more worrisome. Dropping the leads on the Tektronix Scope, I ran after the Super figuring I could at least help in some fashion. Several construction tunnels and stepped elevation changes later we arrived at the scene of the problem. There stood couple of construction types yelling up into the atmosphere of the dome to be. At first, I thought that the Super had been called to break-up a fight. But, no as the Super moved toward the angry men, they directed his attention to several steel members strewn on the floor. Apparently they had returned from a break to find the steel structural members that they had laid out for the next installation cut clean through. I moved closer and glanced down. The villain has used a box to prop up the pieces and had power hacked them in half. The men and the Super’s pointed discussions moved away from the blame for this to a review of the options. This was definitely not good. As I was departing the huddled group, the men were pointing out that the one member had been removed from its packing crate. "Hell, who ever it was had to know what they were doin" the smaller of the two workers said. His co-worker agreed , "Yea, this here’s the main element for the longitudinal span. It can’t be fixed here. It’ll have to be replaced" he said.

As I left, the hair on the back of my head, started to tingle. "What is going on here? ", I thought. Could it be that several of these minor problems were interconnected somehow? I remembered how we had parked our cars near the annex, earlier in the fall. A local contractor was hired to complete the exterior paint on several of the buildings. It was one of those things that needed doing before winter. As we moved cables in and out of the annex, we observed this paint crew and commented about the obvious lack of coordination. One day, we were asked to move our cars out of the way of the potential over spray. We did. A little while later some other guy came in and asked move to move the cars again, claiming the wind was shifting. Several of us had relatively new cars and were into maintaining them well. So, moving them was not a problem for us. Besides, it sort of gave us a bit of a welcomed mid-afternoon break. I questioned this guy a couple of times, noting no real shift in the wind. He maintained they needed to be moved, so I informed my crew and we moved them. When I came out of the annex at the end of the day shift, I could see the problem from a distance. My metallic green ‘61 Pontiac was now a mottled yellow and green. Norm’s highly polished Buick with its black paint now glistened with the yellow dots. I quickly returned to the Annex angry and running and rerunning in my mind what I would do when I got a hold of that paint cop who had told me to move. He was not to be found. The painting contractor disowned him, indicating that his men had told us only once where to move the cars. We went around and around looking for the villain who gave us the second notice…all to no avail. Tempers were near boiling and heated comments flew my way, since I was the guy that asked my crew to move the vehicles.

Sometime after the discovery of the cut beams, the Site cooling system was energized and the preop testing on the pumps and the piping was readied. On the appointed day, intake screens were checked and double-checked, pumps switched on and valves opened allowing the impellers to push the critically needed cooling water up the mountain to the terminal station. The pre-op testing crew was standing by awaiting the gush of water at the top. It was destined to be a long wait. No water showed up. In fact the pumps pressurized the line, but nothing arrived at the top. If there had been a pipe rupture, there would be corresponding inability to pressurize the line. This problem became the talk of our crew as we passed the inspectors unearthing and examining various sections of the now buried pipe. Winter was nearly upon us and the problem would remain unresolved for some time.

Many times in places so remote as Chibougamau, it was hard to find lodging with warm running water and indoor plumbing. This area in winter is simply frightfully cold. The work vehicles were left to run 24-7, creating an exhaust laden, foul smelling atmosphere in town much of the time. At first, our presence caused the locals other annoyances with occasional fights and disturbances in the bars, double-parking blocking access to stores and that kind of thing. In time, things settled down. Overall, time progressed well and I enjoyed my time in town. Fortunately for me, I had found a room at the " Judge’s House" a beautiful large brick bungalow on the edge of the Lake Chibougamau . The Judge had built an interesting piece of property. His home was a compound complete with a boat and seaplane dock. I enjoyed my time in his house, keeping mostly to myself in my downstairs quarters. Occasionally, I would be invited up stairs for coffee to update the Judge on the happenings at the Radar Site. I was smart enough to be guarded in my comments and a respecter of the consequences if I knowingly breached my security clearance. But the Judge was French Canadian, fluent in English and an engaging conversationalist. I was interested in politics and had even considered following my Grandfather’s early path when he had been "Young John’s" campaign manager in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Young John went on to become Prime Minister of Canada and as a younger lad, I was always amazed when my Grandfather got Christmas cards and birthday well wishes from John Diefenbaker. On several occasions, the Judge and I exchanged views on the changing scene in Canada. We particularly and forthrightly talked about the Separatists and the creeping sensation that all was not well in our homeland. More than once while I enjoyed these conversations in the Judge’s living room, I would watch fascinated as a plane would circle the lake, complete a crosswind and final approach, setting down on the rippling and sometimes rough lake waters. The plane would taxi up to the dock and several men in business suits, briefcases in hand would climb down from the De Haviland Beaver and set themselves on the dock. The pattern was always the same. They would stand on the dock, light cigarettes and bounce fingers off each other’s chests as if in an argument that was about to be a brawl. In a few minutes, things would calm down and they would proceed over the dock and up the concrete and brick path to the Judge’s front door. The Judge would then politely dismiss me saying we would get together again, soon. In my quarters below, I would hear the heated and pointed discussions that would ensue, sometimes well into the early morning light.

During most of my times with the Judge, he would address subjects in English and I would listen. He spoke like a mentor and would knowledgeably expound with sadness on the challenges facing Quebec and its people. Occasionally, he would do me the honor of shuffling through some minor discussions in French. I had grown up with a Belgique Grandmother who spoke only to me in French through about age five. The Judge graciously allowed me to practice French during a few of our times together. He was a man of sociological balance and didn’t agree with the Separatists and the principle of estrangement from the rest of Canada. The Judge was a "preservationist" as he liked to say, pointing out the reason d’etre for the Canadian Confederation and why the country could ill afford to undergo provincial surgery. About this time, the mailbox bomb blasts happened with increased frequency in St. Hubert, Montreal and Hull across the river from Ottawa, the nation’s Capitol. I asked the Judge about these travesties and who was responsible and what could be done. In my youthful vigor, I believed you simply marshaled the police and stopped this criminal nonsense before people were maimed or killed. As the weeks passed on, there were several more explosive terrorist incidents making headlines in the press. The Judge withdrew from our weekly chats and I was not invited upstairs any longer. The frequency of visitors increased and very heated discussions in French could be heard coming from the upstairs living room. During the peak of all this coming and going, the Judge left for Montreal and I rarely saw him after that. But I couldn’t get over my knawing feelings that built up when I came home to my room at the Judge’s House. I thought a lot about this in the confines of my downstairs room and bit by piece, I figured it out. The frequent visitors were extremely important men. Men of power and destructive tendencies. In fact, the Judge had played host and mediator to the government power brokers and the heads of the Separatist movement in Quebec. While the effect of all of this continues to this day, the Judge’s attempts at peaceful resolution may have offset more inflammatory terrorist actions.

One morning at the SAGE site a major incident occurred. This was during the period when the buried cooling water piping system along side the mountain road was being unearthed from end to end to find out why water was not reaching the top. It was a bright cool, clear day and I remember casting a glance out across the lake as I proceeded driving up the mountain to work. The lake water was calm and the Pump House glistened behind the newly installed chain link fence. It was compete; fresh paint adorned the buildings and the newly installed stem valves and associated piping exiting the building and disappearing underground. The ground cover had been returned over the buried pipe to bottom of the mountain and up the steep climb to the top. As I passed through the first bend, and the road began to climb, I wondered if the crew would find the problem pipe section today. Sure enough, several hundred yards up the mountain the now familiar scene unfolded. The D-9 Cat was positioned backwards holding the trencher from sliding downhill as it dug down to the latest section of pipe designated to be unearthed.

I rolled into work, gulped down my coffee and began to get debriefed on the problems tackled successfully and unsuccessfully the night before by the graveyard crew. On about 9 am or so, there was a knock at the back door of the Sage Annex, and a man was standing there in a disheveled and dazed state. He was French Canadian and probably a local, I concluded. His speech was slurred and there patches of red marks, like glowing blisters appearing on his face. One particular area around his mouth was deeply burned. He reeked of propane. At first his nervousness and painful discomfort and my tawdry French clouded his point. He wanted and needed some first aid. He haltingly told me that the person who had brought him up to the top of the mountain had gone to park the truck. We quickly rounded up our site first-aid kit and got some numbing salve on his face. Someone went for Site security and I remained to unravel what had happened. I didn’t get the full jist of what had happened to the man before he was whisked away by the Air Force Police. I returned to work that morning with the panging notion that something was truly amiss here. Later that evening, I saw the full magnitude of what had happened.

Driving down off the mountain, I rounded the last bend and headed for the straightaway, which was in fact, the causeway across the inlet to the lake. I glanced over to the left at the Pump Station and looked twice before I realized it was not there. The Pump House buildings, hurricane fence were simply not there. I was across the causeway now. Driving under the upended crude pendulum construction barrier, I pulled up just short of the path that led to the concrete pad and all that remained of the Pump Station. The only visible evidence that there had been any building there at all, was the ugly gutted stem valves and some twisted pieces of pipe as they disappeared underground where they were connected to the cooling system traversing up the mountain. I remember getting in my car and muttering to myself that now it was clear that there was something sorely wrong on this Site. These accidents could not be a coincidence.

At first, the Pump House explosion was officially given some sort of an surreal explanation. In a small town with little for the off shift workers to do in the non-work hours, the events of the day were always well discussed. In this case, the initial implausible official technical explanations did not carry much weight with field engineers and technicians. This was no accident as had been first postulated. Slowly the details emerged.

The man who had appeared at the doorstep of the SAGE Annex was in fact the man who had unfortunately been asked to go into the Pump Station that morning. He was a laborer and had been sent to retrieve some tool left behind by one of the testing crews in their search for the elusive cooling water. The man followed by another helper opened the padlock on the chain link fence surrounding the compound and proceeded forward to the locked entrance of the Pumping Station. At the door, the man paused to select the appropriate key. He fumbled with the keys trying to make the right selection while holding a cigarette firmly in hand. With the key selected and just before he slid it into the lock, he placed the cigarette in his mouth to free up his other hand to open the door.

The subsequent investigation would uncover the fact that someone had moved the propane tanks from their designed exterior location outside of the building to the inside. Forensics would apparently conclude from the remaining pieces of the tanks, that one or more valves on the propane tanks had been opened, allowing the Pump Station to fill with the highly volatile gas. Basically, the Pump Station was well weather sealed. So, it was likely that before the worker opening the door, little of the explosive gas seeped out. The laborer was an extremely fortunate man, as was his buddy in line behind him awaiting the opening of the door. The resounding explosion blew the door and its frame out of the building slamming into the two unsuspecting individuals. The door was later found a considerable distance outside of the compound. Both had been propelled and lifted on a trajectory by the initial concussion. They landed on gravel with the door on top of them, all stacked like some human layer cake. The buddy below suffered more bodily damage. The man on top who originally opened the door held the point of ignition between his lips. Normally, one would expect this to have separated facial tissue from the skull with fatal exactitude. But no, in this case somehow the concussion of the blast extinguished the flash and a nano second later two men and a door were airborne.

Two weeks had gone by since the Pump House explosion. Investigations were now being conducted in full view. Teams of men from the US had arrived and begun interviews with those of us on the Site. They remained unidentified except as military investigators, but we thought they were FBI or the Secret Service or both. The reason they were from the US was that Chibougamau was governed by NORAD and like other Canadian radar stations, was under American control. I had completed my first session with one of these investigative teams earlier in the day. Now as I was entering the car these incidents and thoughts suddenly flooded my mind. What at first seemed to be typical construction site accidents and foul-ups appeared now to potentially have a much darker side. We were all caught up in some form of sabotage. Perhaps even espionage.

On the Site, we were able to plug the cars into heater outlets. Each of our cars carried block heaters, transmission heaters and other devices to allow the vehicle to sit for several hours and not freeze in place. I started the car and watched as William entered on the passenger side. He was a young man newly out of the service and a more recent addition to our Technician team. As yet, he did not have his own vehicle. William was accustomed to getting rides from whoever might be leaving the Site when he came off shift. Tonight was his first ride with me and turned out to be his last. As the engine warmed, William and I engaged in small talk about the day. I interrupted and asked him to scrape off some remaining ice on the back window, which he did. He chipped enough ice off creating some visibility and rushed back into the warming car. Throwing the scraper in the backseat, he slammed the passenger door shut as the car began to slowly move out of the parking area. The moon broke through the pines and lighted the road ahead. New snow had been falling throughout the evening. The old snow and ice crunched under the weight of the wheels as we moved toward the point where the road stopped glistening and the black of night took over. Just ahead, the road dropped off sharply and began the steep, twisting descent down twelve hundred feet to the straightaway and causeway next to the lake.

I had remembered Duncan leaving ahead of me in his Dodge Valiant. Dunk as we called him was a veteran in our business. He was in his early forties and had been installing "stuff" as he called it for the military forever. Nothing bothered Dunk. A liberal amount of scotch on-the-rocks and a jazz album from his extensive collection seemed to calm him after hours under most circumstances. But I could tell these recent happenings on the Site were even getting to Dunk. I had purchased my ‘61 Pontiac new from Hogan motors in Toronto. And I was meticulous about its condition. I had it undercoated with the then latest Z-Bar treatment to avoid rust. Before leaving civilization to travel to Chibougamau, I had the underneath sprayed with a fine oil to ward off corrosive attack from road salt. Even now as I glanced over the hood, I grimaced at the speckles of yellow paint still remaining from the SAGE annex painting incident. As I came upon the part of the road just before the descent, I reminded myself to be extremely cautious since this new fallen snow would make the trek down the mountain even more dangerous. I could tell that William was somewhat apprehensive as we both looked at the steep, icy road looming in front of us.

I had driven some modified cars on a track and had been trained to drive from the age of thirteen in the rutted frozen fields of North York. My time in the service had also given me considerable driving experience in Western Canada on wind-swept, ice-covered roads. But nothing prepared me for what we were about to experience on this night. As the car began the descent, I let off on the accelerator and gently touched the brake pedal for the first time. Something was wrong! There was zero resistance on the pedal! Taking a second to recover from my disbelief, I pushed the pedal harder. It went clear to the mat with no opposing pressure. My brakes were completely gone! The Pontiac quickly gained momentum and I attempted to slow it by easing into the side of the snow-laden banks. But much to my horror, the jagged rocks along the edge of the road slammed into the car knocking it further into the center of the ice slick road. The tire chains were roaring as the speed built–up. I managed the first few twists and turns in the road and shoved the automatic down into low. The engine screamed out against the excessive RPMs but the compression held the car back somewhat. The parking brake proved futile. Any thoughts of ramming into the edge of the road in an attempt to stop carried with it the indelible image of going over the edge. Above all the noise, William was yelling all sorts of "Dammit man, can’t you….", until I told him to get down on the floor and hold on to anything that didn’t move. I knew this road well but I had never counted the turns. In the moonlight, it was impossible to tell exactly how far we had to go to get to the bottom. We careened through the next few curves bouncing from side to side as the speed continued to build. I was trying to think ahead to what would occur next when suddenly I remembered the old cantilevered gate at the far end of the causeway. Basically this a twelve-inch, forty foot timber with a box at the thick end filled with rock and balanced a few feet away on a vertical post at the fulcrum point. It was easy enough to push up and let down which we did upon entering and leaving the mountain. But one thing was very clear now. If we were fortunate enough to somehow get off the mountain in one piece, the Pontiac would be still going at a horrific clip as we approached that gate. If the cantilever were in a down position, with the car traveling at excessive speed, it would take the top off my vehicle like a meat cleaver.

We were somewhere near the bottom of the mountain in a four-wheel drift. The Pontiac had suffered some significant blows. We had remained horizontal but were on a deadly high speed trajectory toward the causeway. I knew I had to straighten the machine out if we were to stay on the road. And, I had made up my mind that going under the meat cleaver and hugging the floor to avoid decapitation was well preferred over the a dip through the ice into the lake. The narrow causeway came into view sideways as I floored the accelerator and shifted simultaneously back into drive. The car was beginning to straighten out as we approached 90 and then 95 mph. As the vehicle fishtailed for the last time, I managed to get a glimpse of the gate as my headlights illuminated the pole. I didn’t have time precisely at that moment, but I wanted to yell out "Thank you God, thank you…" For not only had we made it off the mountain in one piece, but there ahead of me in my headlights was Dunk.

Dunk that loveable old’ rascal standing on the far side of the gate, in ski cap and two sets of gloves holding up the cantilevered pole. As he had stopped his vehicle and got out to open the gate before leaving the area, Dunk had heard the commotion we caused bashing down the mountain. And, bless his heart he remained standing there in the bitter cold holding open that cantilevered gate as I shot beneath it at something approaching 100 mph. Off the causeway, I still had a huge problem. My vehicle was barely under control at nearly it’s top speed, and was without brakes. I chose the snow bank on the left and yelled at William to stay pinned to the floor. Years before I had taught myself in the event of a serious collision to let go of the wheel just before impact and firmly grasp the back of the front seats. There were no seat belts then and I figured this was better than holding on and getting pinned by the steering wheel. The bank was upon us, I let go and held on to those seats for dear life as we disappeared into a large drift and then into the snow covered field beyond. The Pontiac ground to a halt in a white cloud and buried itself in six feet of snow. William I just sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Soon, we could hear Dunk on the roof with a shovel from his trunk extricating us from my slightly battered and snow covered new car.

As I got out and thanked God for His mercy, I knew my car had been sabotaged. Later that night after tow truck removal and delivery to a Chibougamau shop, the mechanic and I examined the brake lines. Both lines had been cut clean through with a hacksaw!

When I returned to the Site, my report of cut brake lines was added to the investigations of cut and missing structural members, destruction of a power house by dynamited rock, stray paint, obliteration of a Pump House by misplaced propane tanks, and loss of cooling water at the top of the mountain due to missing pipe. In the latter case, the authorities finally found that several feet of buried pipe half way up the mountain had been removed and the vacant section of the trench refilled.

More FBI and Secret Service personnel as well as RCMP showed up on site. The interviews now turned to interrogations. Work resumed under increased military surveillance and we attempted to get the Site operational as fast as possible since we were so far behind schedule. Sometime in the spring of the following year, I was part of the final test and turnover team as we civilians turned on the AN FST-2B for our last time. Shortly after my harrowing car experience, the investigators began spending a lot of time with one of the American liaison personnel on the Site. John was a young engineer, married and accompanied by his wife at the Site. They lived in a small cabin at the bottom of the mountain near the lake. I had been to their place once for dinner. They sort of struck me as moderately hippie and seemed to espouse some philosophy that didn’t quite match his occupation. Suddenly without warning, they were gone. We were told that they left in a rush accompanied by FBI personnel back to the States. Some of the local faces were not seen around the Site after that either.

Whether, it was true or not the stories of Communist Agents circulated on the Site and in town, somewhat along the lines of those claiming to have seen UFO’s. Thankfully, no one on our Technical team was suspect. And, none of the Prime Contractor personnel that we interfaced regularly came under scrutiny. But, John and his wife and others disappeared. And yet, years later after learning of the extent of the activities of the hard-core Separatists, I wondered. I wondered if any of those tough looking guys in the suits on the Judge’s dock ever visited the mountain. Or, instructed others to do so. Could it have possibly served their purpose to create this kind of difficulty with the Canadian and US Governments. Was anyone that was fighting for the Quebecquois that strategically devious. I prefer to believe that they were not involved, but I still wonder.

Chibougamau was closed by the Canadian Government in 1988.