Resolution Island, NWT

1974 – Memories of Resolution Island – Donald Patterson

One of the objectives on my part is to provide detail on what remained or existed at Resolution Island - some 13 years after the American Air Force closed down the radar station that was operational at this location between 1954 and 1961. While the USAF may have departed, there remained a small contingent of civilian personnel - employed solely for the purpose of maintaining the Pole Vault Troposcatter and the BMEWS communications system. The following detail is based on my memories, as I experienced my tour at Resolution Island in 1974.

Employer - I hired on with ITT Canada. I saw an advertisment in the Halifax newspaper. I did not have a clue what they were talking about, so like any other ex military tech, with a gift of the gab, I applied. In a couple of days my phone was ringing and some guy by the name of Fred Dubois, told me "You do not have to know anything about the system" just have a doctor certify that you are in one piece, and we will take care of the rest. Music to my ears, the papers arrived, the doc said I was in one piece. Even enclosed were airline tickets marked "non-refundable" Halifax-Goose Bay. Man I was on my way. Oh by the way - there was one thing that they did not mention, "security clearance". I guess the Americans have a think for that. No problem. I had been in the military and I had "Top Secret" clearance at one time, so that was the least of my worries.

Previous Employer - I arrived at Goose Bay according to my notes between the 5th and 7th of May, 1974. The first thing that I ran into was a security check. I had to fill out a bunch of forms for the USAF and then go over to the Canadian side of the base and repeat the exercise for the CAF. What got me through this, was that I had been previously granted a "Top Secret" clearance while I was in the Canadian Army Signals back in the mid 1960's. I had worked doing installations on the infamous Deifenbunkers at Carp Ontario, outside Ottawa, and Debert NS. These were Comm Centers some 90 feet underground, built for civil defense, government, et. They could hold up to 300 persons and could be buttoned up for up to three months in case of a nuclear attack. The equipment was mostly HF, RTT and data links - "state of the art" at the time - manufactured by Collins. I am told that some are still in use and that some of the equipment is still classified. Any way a quick telex confirmed I was who I said I was, and I was cleared later on in the day. Next I was taken up to Melville, shown around, and was told that I had less than two weeks to learn, or leave. I chose the former and after a week or so I was shunted off to Hopedale for a few days to get the feel of working with no readily available support. I spent my time there working in the North office, maintaining the tropo, especially the parametric amplifiers and reciever noise combiners. The hop between Hopedale and Saglek employed 120 foot billboards and the path was prone to severe fading. I made the stupid remark that one way fading was indicitive of equipment trouble and that blaming the weather could not be justified under all circumstances. As a matter of fact, I recall telling the chief tech officer, the more that one works on the equipment, the better the weather gets. I cannot take credit for the statement. I read it somewhere - however, it got me on the plane for Hopedale. The week or so spent there sure came in handy, when I got to Resolution Island.

Travel to Resolution Island - We flew from Goose Bay to Frobisher Bay in a Curtis C-47. It took all of six hours and many times during the flight it was doubtful that we would make it. Something was wrong with the starboard propeller as it kept sending intense vibrations through the entire aircraft. Then there was a three day wait in Frobisher, either weather locally or over Resolution Island caused the delay. Things in Frobisher Bay were not that bad though. The hotel was comfortable, food was good, and the beer was cold. Our trip to Resolution Island was on a charter twin otter - enough said about that.

Buildings and Personnel - I arrived at Resolution Island on 27 May 1974. The station at the time was manned by an estimated 20 to 25 personnel. All trades were represented. As an example, I recall that there were cleaners, cooks, communications personell, weather personnel, a medic/storeman, diesel mechanics, heating plant personell, electricians, three tropo techs, and of course Mr. Wisker the station chief. All of the buildings were in use and heated. I was assigned a suite which consisted of three rooms - bedroom, living room and an extra large storage room. All of these rooms were well furnished and very comfortable. The Mess was in the main administration bbuilding, along with the station chief's office, a small medical facility, and various offices for the different trades people. The garage was functioning, heated and very busy as we had some rather old Dodge Powerwagons, that always needed repair. There was also a Dozer, a D4 or D6, and a rather new Sicard snowblower for the runway. The power plant had eight or nine GM 100kw generators with two off line for maintenance at any one time. There was also one generator that provided power to what was called the Rickwell line. It was the water line that ran down to the lower camp area. The current flowed through the line to keep it from freezing. Within the cluster of buildings were various store rooms and maintenance shops. Also a very well equipped woodworking shop. I built a very nice desk and drawers for myself during my spare time, so well in fact that it was too big to get out of the shop and into the catwalks. So there it stayed - maybe it is still there. The old radar building minus it's radome was used by the Department of Transport weather observers. They had some instruments placed there. Mr George MacAlpine, was one of the weather observers - a real nice person who kept mostly to himself as I recall. The Tropo building south office was situated between the two billboard antennas facing Saglek. They were 60 feet. The north office facing Brevort was between the two 30 foot dishes. The north office was unmanned and across a few hundred feet of open ground, an annuniciator panel in the south office showed any equipment or building alarms facing north. On a bad day, weather wise, you had to don a type of survival suit, put on a harness, and then be let out on a safety line across the open space between the two. I hated going into the north office for any reason. It was small, cramped and spookey. The wind in the dishes could be heard in the building. When you were comming back to the south office on a real windy day, you were reeled in as fast a possible - sometimes dragged like a sack of potatoes. Needless to say that the equipment in the north office was maintained just a little bit better to avoid instances like above. We had one more thing in our favour, the klystrons in the north office were 1kw, and air cooled, so they presented less of a maintenance nightmare compared to the glycol cooled 10kw ones facing south. Even though there was only about 1/5 of the people during my stay, there seemed to be no excess of space. There was always someone doing something and of course with the buildings being around as long as they were, there was no lack of things to be done. All in all, I recall a very impressive site - suberb people to work with. There were two Tropo Techs in position upon my arrival - I made it three. They were working 12 hourr, 7 day weeks, 8am-8pm and if they wanted to change shifts, one would work 24 hours. They were bummed out, and shortly after I arrived one of the techs decided he had enough. He had been there almost a year, so I took over the 12/7 with the lead until I left in September 1974.

Equipment - The equipment at Resolution Island consisted of the following: FRC 39A-V (REL959A) tropo scatter system 10kw, south Saglek, 60 foot billboards; 1kw north Brevort Island 30 foot dishes, quadriple diversity, four noise combining recievers 2 on vertical, 2 on horizontal polarity, front ends had Northern Electric Parametric Amplifiers. On a good day they would deliver 43db gain to the RSL, using a klystron to upconvert the incoming one from around 900 mhz to 10ghz, then beat with the LO to output a 70mhz IF, into the reciever. Polevault REL 798 to and from Frobisher Bay, 5 kw, hot standby transmitter single 60 foot dish, 2 recievers on line lo noise front end, frequency band 891mhz Tx to Frobisher, 731 Rx Frobisher, lots of troubles in the Tx used to kick off/transfer for no apparent reason, usually in the wee hours of the AM. Mux-Western electric "L" carrier facing south, Lenkurt 45BX facing north, GEC facing Frobisher, WECO and Lenkurt had nominal -16/+7, GEC had -13/+4, WECO and Lenkurt had Mod/Demod, GEC had GO/Return. Carrier arrangement - Super Group 1 - thru super group Melville-Cape Dyer. Super Group 2-GP 1-spare Gp2- drop/insert Hopedale/Saglek/Resolution 22JTGL Gp3- drop/insert Hopedale/Saglek/Resolution 22JTGM Gp4- drop/insert Hopedale/Saglek/resolution 22JTGN Gp5- Melville to Frobisher via polevault 22JTGG as well additional groups were inserted at Resolution Island toward Frobisher/Cape Dyer. VHF/UHF- 122.2 Mhz RCA FRT-502 243.0Mhz Collins T-217A/GR TX R-278A/GR RX 364.2Mhz Collins same as above Telegraph keyers Northern Electric 43A1.

Feeding - As previously mentioned, I arrived at Resolultion Island on 27 May 1974. Crawley MacCracken? I was asked as I stepped of the plane. No I replied - Don Patterson is my name. Well you are no good to me was the reply from the English accent gentleman, who then abruptly turned away and asked the next person off Crawley MacCracken?. Who in the hell was that I asked a bushey haired guy driving one of the infamous Dodge Powerwagons. That was John Wisker. He is the Station Chief. Little did I know at the time, Crawley MacCracken was the name of the company that provided kitchen staff to the site and little did I know at the time that the cook, who was being loaded onto the plane, had scalded himself with hot cooking oil down both legs, and that the dishwasher/helper was keeping everyone fed for the past week or so. With that crisis in hand, and after a couple of hours, in which all helped to clean up the kitchen, the daily routine started for me and everyone else on the island. The new cook or should I say "chef" took no time to get things in order. Actually I found out the he came to Resolution Island to save money so that he could open his own resturant in Montreal. From that day on we had the best Mess all the way up and down the line. The meals were very tastefully done. The guy was an artist. The freezers were well stocked with all the staples, as well as the other miscellanous rooms. The guy even found time to bake bread and pastry. Many of us gained 20 pounds in a few weeks. Let me tell you, when people start complaining that the fillet is too thick, and that they want plain old bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of some super duper omlette, I think that we are all heading for trouble. No kidding. As far a facilities went we had a standard cafeteria, steam table set up, about five or six tables for four with ample room for others if needed. As well the BMEWS had their own kitchen set up with a grill and a freezer, stove, dishes and such in case you did not want to walk to the main kitchen. Many times we ate there especially when short staffed. That way, no one had to come to the BMEWS and relieve you.

Rations - As I recall, most of the staples were sea lifted the previous year. Once in awhile the plane from Goose would make it all the way with some fresh fruit and vegetables - but not very often. It seems that there was a fog bank forever in the area, or a wind storm, or a combination of rain/fog/wind that would beat the plane nine times out of ten. I remember the large sides of beef, pork, lamb, and boxes of chicken in the walk in freezers. The warm storage bins were full of potatoes, beets, corn. You name it. Also boxes of chocolate bars and other items such as nuts. I can honestly say that if we were short of anything, I was not aware of it - although sometimes fried eggs gave way to scrambled eggs for a spell. At least until the next plane. One amazing thing was the mechanical cow. It seems that a mixture of powered milk, butterfat, and water was put into a contraption that mixed it all up - chilled it and pumped it to the steam table. The mechanical cow delivered what was close to the real thing - and if you added some Nestle's Quick, it was the real thing. The same with the potatoes. Over time one would see more and more of the instant mashed, but depending on how they were prepared, I never heard anyone complain. Remember we had a "chef". If you think Tim Horton captured the market on donuts you should have tasted the ones we had. I do not think I ever had anything as well done. I am very sorry I cannot remember the "chef's" name. What a shame as he deserves special mention.

Entertainment - I seem to recall that watching your fingernails grow was a popular past time. Really I guess we made our entertainment own most of the time. Some read and some listened to CBC. "This Country in the Morning" was a popular day time show. It came up from on the scatter heading for CBC Frobisher. We broke it out and piped it through on the local intercom. The BBC used to be fed via Cape Dyer from the East - Flyingdales I think, and of course there was always AFRTS. If one was really desperate someone rigged up a small 5/10 watt AM transmitter and you could pick it up around the area. Once in a while, a movie would find its way up from Goose Bay. The projector kept burning out lamps, however, and the more lamps we got the more lamps burned out. I think everyone had a crack at that one. Never could fix the trouble - never seemed to be able to get a replacement projector either. Maybe the hand writing was on the wall. Then of course you could build a desk, and try to get it out of the shop. I guess in my memory, I was just sitting around the kitchen, chewing the fat with the guys. For some reason to me at least time hardy ever seemed long. I for one was doing what I loved to do and on many occasions I went down to the BMEWS and helped out. Even on my time off. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Mail Delivery - As I recall, the flights in and out were on an "as required" basis. However, I think the target was one evey two weeks minimum. Sometimes a breakdown on the tropo, or some other high priority would generate additional flights but as I mentioned, the bugaboo weather had planes sitting sometimes in Saglek, more often in Frobisher for days on end waiting for the weather to clear. Who can blame them sitting in Frobisher vs Saglek. Even on my way up to Resolution Island from Goose Bay we sat in Frobisher Bay for three days waiting for clear weather. I must add at this point, that when I look at photos and maps (on your web site) of the Resolution Island runway shown at 1500 feet - well I can tell you that the day we landed someone stole 800 feet of that runway because we came in on what was a medical evacuation flight, flying a Pacific Western Airways "Twin Otter" aircraft. We had a very young pilot at the controls. I was sitting up front with him. For some reason he thought that I was an old hand getting in and out of these places. I was 33 at the time, and on approach to Resolution Island he asked me over the intercom if I would mind taking her in the rest of the way? We were being tossed around like garbage in a dumpster, and to be honest, I was sort of occupied looking for a barf bag at the time. I must have nodded to the affirmative, because the next thing I knew, we were heading for the deck less than 1500 or so below, I heard this loud "Jesus Christ" comming out of the passenger cabin, even with the noise of the engines, wind, and everything else. Next thing I knew we were hard banking out over the cliffs and the water, but the updraft was so great, in no time we were at 3,000 feet. I quickly told the guy, who I was, why I was there, and that I did not want to die today. He tried several attemps to come in from the ocean side, but the updraft was too strong. So with the wind or should I say in a cross wind, he hit the runway on the land side, with wheels locked, and I am sure the props were in reverse. I had marks on my shoulders from the harness for almost a week. We rolled as close to the cliff as I cared to go then back to the terminal building. I never saw that guy again. He had turned around and was back in the air before we even sorted out the baggage. Maybe that was why we never saw that many flights into Resolution Isand.

Yellow Beach - The only thing that sticks in my mind about "Yellow Beach" is in that the fresh water lake, where the Rickwell line pumped domestic water to the main camp. Also in that area was the lower construction camp, which for all intents and purposes, was supposed to be an emergency evacuation camp in case of fire or some other catastrophic event that made the main camp unliveable. We made only one trip down to the camp as part of a survival inventory to see what was here, and what was needed. At that time, the camp was trashed. By whom I have no idea. All the rations, blankets, fuel, and other miscellaneous equipment was either smashed or missing. Someone said that native fishermen were to blame while others said it was damaged by tourists who sail that part of the ocean during the summer months. I have no idea. Another reason why most stayed away unless their job took them there, was the presence of a old male polar bear whom was seen quite frequently in that area. I was told but never saw, that he was sort of a dirty yellow in color, and would wave you over just like a person if he saw you. As I said, I heard but never saw.

Sea Lift - As previouly mentioned I arrived 27 May,1974. Well by September 1974 I was on my way out of Resolution Island. Even at the ripe old age of 33 - tonsils can cause you much grief. Mine became absessed and I had to be sent out for removal. When I was getting ready to go I heard that a leak, a big leak had been discovered in the manifolds that connect to the storage tanks down in the beach area. Then I heard that a leak had been detected in one of the diesel storage tanks, making the tanks impossible to fill. The last I heard was that on the next sea lift, around the end of September, 1974, the plan was to lay down rubber bladders to enable the required amount of fuel to be delivered. As far as I know the annual sea lift took place very late in September or early October, 1974. One big item that was removed that I know of was the Sicard snow blower. It was shipped to Frobisher Bay - maybe the handwriting was on the wall after all.

Departure - Shortly after I left the lead was transfered to Melville, and some fellows who used to work for CN telecommunications on the island of Newfoundland, came in to take over. I believe there were two or three of them. I had my tonsils ripped out in Montreal. They flew me to Frobisher - then to Montreal by Nordair jet. A week or two later I returned to Goose, and was asked by the fellow who used to be lead in Resolution if I would be interested in taking lead at Melville. He was the lead when he came from Resolution Island, but he was being promoted to Chief Tech. The word was out that the line was closing and all the senior managers were moving on to a ITT company called Felec services. They had just been awarded the DEW line contract. After all that song and dance ,musical chairs really, I finished out the year and worked at Melville until around June of the following year, with another stint in Hopedale, for a month or so.

Epilogue - I hope that I have given you some insight into the operations. I only hope that I did not bore you with too many details. Sometimes writing this it just comes flowing out. As I mentioned I have recently retired from Bell in Ontario,and moved back home to NS. All that I learned on the tropo was to be of utmost value. When I hired on with Bell, they hired me off the street, fully trained at top rate, and gave me a string of microwave sites to maintain, 6 in all. I saw the evolution from 60 channel, to 300 channel, to 1800 channel on the analogue side, up to the RNS 440 digital radios that if they had of been developed fully would have carried 7200 channel service or in todays parlance OC12. When I left, I was involved in the OC192 which is 192x672 channel fiber systems, they just sit there and work, no tweeking. You need a laptop computor to see what is going on, then you are limited by passwords how much you can see, and when you can see it. That was not for me, the systems in the past were like living beings, they responded to care and rewarded you for a job well done. That is progress I guess, but there is no soul. Innovation gives way to boredom, and after a while you begin to believe, that yes there really is a maytag man after all.