Brooklyn, NS

Location: - From Halifax follow highway #103 west to exit #18. From there follow highway #3 for two kilometres also in an westerly direction. On your right you will see a storage site for construction equipment behind a security fence and a locked gate. This is now private property and no admittance is permitted. There are three buildings remaining and two are easily seen from the highway.

General Detail: - In Mill Village I stopped at a general store and spoke with Ted Evans the owner. He told me that what I'm looking for is at what is known locally as "Happy Landing" and I would be wise to first speak with a Mr Armada Wigglesworth who writes for the local paper, "The Advance" located on Main Street in Liverpool. We continued on into town and parked in front of the Saans department store directly across from the newspaper office. I entered the newspaper office and when I asked to speak with Mr Wigglesworth, I was advised that he was not in. I was, however, provided with his home telephone number. The next step would be to contact and communicate with this gentleman.

I eventually managed to contact Mr Wigglesworth by telephone. We spoke at great length and he provided me with the name of a gentleman who lives close to where the radar station had been located. He also provided me with directions on how to get the site of the radar station, stating that very little of anything remained at this time.

We followed the directions which had been provided and arrived at an area that had been gleaned of any top soil which may have been present in the past. We parked the car and spread out over the excavated ground hoping to locate something of interest. As in all great archaeological digs it is that last desperate look for clues that leads to discovery. I found what appeared to be a piece of board 18x5 inches in length and width painted a green hue that appeared to be of the shade used on military buildings. I set the lens to the macro position and took a picture. At the same time my travelling companion summoned me to show a number of pieces of pottery. To me it appeared to be of a grade that could have been used in a military mess hall. We continued our search of the area and located two more broken fragments of the same plate, one piece with the manufactures name clearly visible on the smallest of them. I washed the mud off in a puddle of water, placing them on a nearby rock, and I took several photos. I continued searching and between the two of us we found several more objects not native to the gravel pit. It appeared that a building had been bulldozed and over the years as the gravel was removed the lumber from these dwellings had been ground into the soil. I took pictures, exhausting the remaining exposures on the roll of film.

From the Legion, I called the number that had been given to me by Mr Wigglesworth. I spoke with Mr Lanny Delong who gave us his address and we found his home on the banks of the Mersey River. When we told Mr De Long where we had been he said that we had not gone along the road far enough to where the gate was, but if we had kept straight when we entered the gravel pit we could have reached the old radar site via the back. While the area is now private property, he would show us where it was and we could look through the fence and take some pictures. Much to my amazement, the guard house was still standing just inside the locked gate. Another building that appears as if it was a garage, as there are large doors on the front, is still in existence. I took pictures and Mr De Long regaled us with stories of the local area and life on the south shore.

Finally it was time for us to return home and we bid Mr De Long a good day. There was one additional "pleasant surprise" in store for us. Mr De Long indicated that he knows where we can find some photos of the Brooklyn radar station taken during the war years. It will probably take some time to obtain copies, but at least it provides some degree of incentive to continue this quest.

We were about two kilometres down the road heading home when I was advised "I can get through the opening in the gate, let's go back". As I stood guard, my travelling companion slipped inside and found yet another building beyond where we could see from the gate. Several additional photos were taken and we then proceeded home - tired, happy, and somewhat pleased in what we had been able to accomplish.