The late Mr. WG Brown was sent down to Sioux Lookout as the Defence Construction Limited Project Engineer. Mr. Brown and his assistant, Mr. E Locke, did the preliminary survey work and organization for the job. The first thing was to get a road built into the site. This was accomplished by Hewitson Construction. A telephone line was then run in from the highway to Hudson but the service was not too good.
Claydon Company then built a mess, office and bunkhouse, which was the Headquarters building, and three small cabins for supervisors and visitors. Power was supplied by a caterpillar generating plant. The cook was top notch, and all the crew was well fed and content. Working hours were ten hours a day, seven days a week, with every second Sunday off.
Construction work on the barracks, combined mess and garage were well under way when winter set in, quite early that year. The installation of sewers and water mains for the domestic area proceeded slowly due to frost and rock. A great deal of blasting had to be done to get down to the correct depth.
As buildings were closed in, the question of heat arose and it was decided to install a temporary boiler system. A large, old ship's boiler was obtained in Thunder Bay and set up on the site, adjacent to Barrack Block 5, with temporary overhead steam and condensate lines running to all buildings where connections were made to temporary units or the building system. The building heating systems were of American design and of much too great a capacity, so a great deal of heat went out the windows to help heat Ontario.
The high point of the winter and the cause of great excitement, was the blowing down of the main steam line on an afternoon with the temperature hovering around -45 degrees F. The contractor was blasting rock and frost and set off a charge too close to the steam mainline, which came crashing down in a cloud of steam and broken pipe. Alf England, the steam fitter foreman, had men rushed up from Thunder Bay and, with other available manpower, heat was restored before any damage occurred, although several cribbage and poker games were interfered with.
While all this activity was going on at the domestic site, work was proceeding apace at the Operations site and the road to the Transmitter and Receiver sites. The rock elevation on the powerhouse site was too high and a great deal of rock had to be blasted off and over the bank to come to grade. The rock in the Operations area was very heard and a great deal of difficulty was encountered in drilling same. At this time, short delay blasting caps were just being introduced and this job was one of the first to use the new type caps.
A rock outcrop had to be blown off where the Powerhouse fuel tank was to sit. A slight miscalculation was made in the size of the charge, the result being roughly one-half ton or more of rock landing on the Powerhouse roof. No damage was done but a lot of feelings were ruffled.
While the drilling and blasting was going on, the site for the Operations building and the Tower bases were being cleared. A pocket of muskeg was encountered under the Operations building and the stink of this mass of rotted material was worse than the Dryden Paper Company on a bad day. The bulk of the concrete work and the block laying at the Operations site was done in extreme winter weather. The cold alone posed many problems which were overcome with a great deal of boarding in and heating.
Bears gave everyone an interesting time, as did the wolves. One Stationary Engineer came rushing down from the Operations site crying there were three or four hungry wolves sitting there watching him. The engineer was given a rifle, but he must have been a poor shot, because after a box of shells had been expended, there were no dead wolves to show for it. However, another worker shot a bear right in front of his cabin.
Curling was a favorite pastime that winter. Rinks, made up of contractor's people, would take on all comers. A regular game every Sunday morning was with "Moose", the Provincial Policeman in Hudson. A bottle of rum, paid for by the losers, was the prize. As one can well imagine, the Hudson Curling Rink in those days was a cold place so the prize was consumed before the winner was decided. Then of course there was the Hudson week-end bonspiel with the first draw at 3 a.m. and four sheets of ice on LacSuel. A great time was had by all and the hospitality of the Hudson people is well remembered.
On 28 October 1952, a supply officer and 14 enlisted men arrived at Sioux Lookout from Grenier Air Force Base, New Hampshire, to begin construction work for radar and communications equipment for the 915th Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W) Squadron. The main body of the 915th was at Sioux Lookout by 5 December, and immediately assumed construction tasks. By April, 1953, 915th Squadron completed most of the major construction projects, including installation of teletype lines and long-range radar search units.
Operations began in April 1953, although the unit was not fully operational until 15 July. General air surveillance and long-range search were principal emphases of the 915th during this time, as it participated in a steadily increasing number of actual and simulated air defence operations. The 915th operated and maintained a radar and communications facility in Canada as a Manual Air Direction Center for the North American continental air defence. The 915th supported the Central Air Defence Force until 1 January 1959 when overall direction shifted to the 37th Air Division of the Eastern Defence Force.
Following the inactivation in April 1959 of the 37th Air Division, the 915th operated under the 30th Air Division (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) until July, when it became a part of the Canadian extension of the Duluth Air Defence Sector. During the 1950's the 915th acquired increasingly sophisticated radar and communications equipment, with the last major construction project being a radar tower completed in 1961 at Sioux Lookout.
The decommissioning and dismantling of the first sizable elements of the 915th occurred in early 1961, when a large radar tower and the rigid radome were shipped to Royal Canadian Air Force Station Moosonee, Ontario, and to Royal Canadian Air Force Station Chibougamau, Quebec, respectively.
Gradual cutback in other 915th elements took place in October 1962; meanwhile, the 915th personnel assisted in planning for assumption of responsibility at Sioux Lookout by the Royal Canadian Air Force.
-- Submitted by JH Blackie, CET, CFS Sioux Lookout 25th Anniversary Yearbook - 1953 - 1978.
