CONTENTSCONTENTSOne of the things I remember vividly about the MCL 300 sector in the Knob Lake area was how intense the winter cold was. When our group arrived in Knob in early January 1957, we deplaned from the Quebecair Fairchild plane at midnight, and we were immediately struck with a numbing blast of ultra cold Arctic air. Our small group of four I & R tech’s that was assigned to the sector were part of the dissolved fifth wave. The wave had been broken up after nine weeks of training to man the sites that were missing personnel across the line. We were bundled into a waiting car and whisked away to the SCS barrack building. I knew that I was not imagining how cold it was when I saw the driver plug the automobile in and leave it running. It was common practice in Knob to leave all vehicles idling all night or they would not start in the morning. Once we were settled in our cubicles we were introduced to the national drink of Northern Quebec. It was called Caribou, and it consisted of a half a cup of coffee, mixed with a half cup of Alchool. After two of these you forgot about the cold, and everything else for that matter.
A few days later I was assigned to DDS site 309. one hundred miles west of Knob, one of the daily morning chores was to radio the site weather conditions into Knob Lake. One day in mid January at 6 AM, I checked the outdoor thermometer it was registering a minus 55 degrees F. The windsock was dangling at a thirty degree angle indicating that with the wind chill factored in the temperature was probably significantly colder. It was my coldest day on the Line. A couple of days later when I was going outside to the cook house I noticed something moving a couple of miles south of the site. With binoculars I was able to make out that it was a man walking with a determined stride with a dog loping by hy his side. It looked like he had a packsack and a rifle, but he was making no attempt to come any where near the site. I watched him as he disappeared over a hill. Apart from Knob Lake I knew there were no other communities near us so I can only assume he was a trapper with his dog out for a walk to attend to his trap line.
When I read that story about 309 and the CO-2, I thought how many more stories there were about 309.
I was a line tech for four years, and I have never had so much trouble as I did with 309. I was there for three months, and in that time I had faults that I never had before or after. Here are some of the faults I had:
In the 300 sector we used HF sets to talk to the choppers, but 309 was in a dead area and we could not hear a thing no matter what we tried, The TX (transmitter) was fine, but no RX (Receive).
When the snow was gone we were always short of water, and had to call for a water lift. Water got into the feed line for the VHF
UHF set got cooked and had to be replaced
The Beacon had an open transformer fault
There was a bad lead in the Doppler equipment, but it worked in the "B" equipment.
The starting condenser in the water pump was open, and we couldn’t get a replacement so we had to used an electric drill to start it every time we needed any water.
The starting condenser in a doppler fan was open, so the fan had to be replaced
There was an intermittant fault in P.M.(Phase Modulator) on the DQ,(Microwave Equipment Model DQ-38). I thought that it was the F/C (frequency changer)as every time I checked the PM the output was good, It turned out to be a bad joint.
Then all of a sudden the lights started to go dim and back up again. I went to the diesel room and saw that the site was drawing 7 - 25 KW, in the equipment room. (I don’t know why). I changed the DQ TX and it stopped, When I changed back it remained OK, and was fine for the rest of my stay, How can a DQ TX draw an extra 18 KW without blowing a fuse?
We were getting very low on oil. We kept sending in reports but no oil lift. We went on day tanks and that when I left to go on holidays. I heard later that the tech was talking to 300 about the oil and was told that it should switch tanks any moment. It didn’t and that was when the diesel stopped, and they had to fill the other tank by had.
I spent the next six months at 215 and heard the test board say many times “309 off the air again”
I thought that my troubles were ended when I left 309, but when I was in Montreal I got married.
Eric DeFrae
Sept 16 2007
Young boy to old man.
In 1962 This young man, then of 23 years of age was recruited from the UK by a guy called Ron Mason to be a technician on the MCL. Eventually arriving in Montreal at the Marconi school of how to do it.
After a short course of familiarisation, on the various equipments, I was allocated and duly flown up to Schefferville and on arrival indoctrinated into the “ways” of SCS and DDS living.
There was a vacancy for a technician at Hopedale 201 and me, being “green and keen”, plumped for the job. Now as SCS 200 was on the USAF base down the hill from 201 there was a job need to get into their security restricted control room. To do so you had to swear allegiance to the USA. Well that to this rookie posed a bit of a problem, as I had previously sworn allegiance to our Queen in the UK. This was for a National Service commission in the RAF.
Eventually I was called in front of the duty officer, for their procedure, when BANG I told him of my dilemma. This, so called, problem hadn’t been dealt with before and he duly referred it upwards in his chain of command until it got to major Mac. We had quite a chat about loyalty, morality and conscience and he being a battle hardened veteran eventually gave the good advise of, Oh just do it son. No problems after that except whenever I met the guy who swore me in, he would greet me with “HI YA TWO FLAGS”
Good times were had at 201 where we had a team of two technicians a French Canadian cook and an odd job man doing the cleaning and general maintenance. The village of Hopedale was past the USA outpost and situated in a bay where seaplanes used to land in the summer months with supplies, no shortage then of un-loaders just in case a crate “came open.” We got to know the locals as our odd job man used to collect all the used teabags and the villagers had a recipe to ferment them into (well you know what).
To get down to the base or the village, we had a truck and a small tracked vehicle, called, I believe, a Bombadiere. Now that was OK for the drivers amongst us but our poor old cook couldn’t drive and so as to get a beer, or two, or several!, at the base; he had to walk down the shortest way he could. This entailed following a pipeline. Well one day we had a whiteout between him going out and coming back, apparently he started off OK on the return journey but lost the guiding pipeline. We weren’t too concerned and he eventually turned up the worse for wear never to touch another drop (until next time). I suppose this discourse will seem to be revolving around the social need for alcohol, but it wasn’t all that way, as, between those things called work and sleep we enjoyed ourselves using the facilities at the base for R&R along with a bit of walking and fishing.
Highly against the rule book (what rules?) I got myself a rifle and used to stomp many a mile with the secure thought that I could match any MONSTER I might meet.
Back then to the booze.
On another occasion our odd job man was firing up a Herman Nelson hot air blower, used to pre-heat the helicopter engines. Well he was doing this in his wooden workshop, and you’ve guessed it “whoosh” we had a fire on our hands, the whole building was ablaze in no time. As the building was close to the main living quarters we thought it prudent to call on the USAF for help. Now somewhere along the line HERMAN NELSON ( the machine ) got distorted into HERMAN NELSON ( a person ) being burnt up. Great consternation. Fire engines fire chief and medics, all bells ringing!.
This was just before Christmas and 201 had had it’s beer ration delivered a day or two before. As you can imagine then, we had to pay in kind.
Well time went by and after a few months I had to get back to Knob Lake to see a surgeon in the hospital for a minor operation. During that time I went out to service equipment on a couple of DDS. It was while I was on one of them that J.F.K. was assassinated. Real serious times then, Red Alert and me on my own with a “bushed” cook. That was the only time in my two years on the MCL that a sense of fear came over me. Although this old man now 69 can look back to the many dangers of the time, Downed Helicopters, Bears, Wolves , Hypothermia, Getting lost in the bush. But then-- young to old-- that’s life isn’t it. I would not have wanted to have missed those days for anything, Anyone know the whereabouts of fellow Marconi technicians of that time Colin Grantham, Don Clark, Ken Saunders or Duncan McKench (spelling?)
Ron moody
Mar 03, 2008
I was with the G.E.C. in England and studying for professional qualifications (2 years to go). An advertisement appeared in the (then) Wireless World magazine. I thought ‘blooming great, I bet that job will not still be there when I have passed my exams’
It was! So I applied. Interview in London, told “there are 460 applicants! but ---- You have got one of the posts”
. In due course, arrived in Montreal for training. (which lasted a very long time - ‘they’ had lost all 6 copies of the security clearance form that I had completed in G.B. No way could I remember all the various addresses of ‘digs’ that I had used but it was sufficient)
. Duly shipped north to Knob Lake (Burnt Creek - Schefferville). Not long after, was changed from Tech maintaining 4 D.D.S sites to a Tech carrying out maintenance of Test Equipment (Calibration Team 13) - which suited me down to the ground, lots of travel along the line. (Taking re-calibrated test gear out to each D.D.S. in turn and bringing the old set back in for re-working. This carried on along the entire length of the Marconi section, Hopedale to west of Hudson Bay Railway)
Memories:-
5400 miles travel in ‘choppers’, both the Sikorsky S55 and Bell? H21. It was in the smaller one that I usually traveled ‘first class’ in the 2nd crew members seat
. Feeding wolf on two separate occasions. (He had no fear of me nor me of him). Having a fox tame enough (? Sufficiently unafraid) to take food from my hand; when he had enough, he still took more and trotted off to bury the surplus in the snow. He also decided to take away my exposure meter until shouted at!
Waiting at Hopedale for 3 days due to ‘white-out.
The ‘tourist-type’ flights that chopper pilots gave the new-comers, including flying low, from behind, over a tractor train. Some days later, at the next D.D.S., the tractor driver turned the order wire red-hot with expletives. (‘Blacky’ was one such pilot).
Two of us Techs building a complete broadcasting station, I ‘did’ the audio gear and my colleague did the transmitter. It all worked for over a year with only one valve failure (in the monitor receiver). Licensed, this was CKWN “The Voice of Winisk”. Meant to have been 5 watts into final but was more like 7 watts output; long aerial over recreation hall (lead) roof; reports from listeners in mid USA!
My boss was Real St. Pierre. I decided “Too much of a mouthful”, so called him Fred. Before he could stop it, everybody on the base was calling him Fred.
Animals seen included Black Bear, Caribou, porcupine, Ground Squirrel, Ptarmigan (idiot bird!), the work of Beaver and his lodge but not the actual animal, huge flocks of geese.
On a few Sundays, the high-ranking RCAF personnel would sometimes fly in for fishing. I used to scrounge a lift on the chopper. The size of those trout!! ; the hook would hardly enter the water before there as a fish on it.
Our round included Kirkland Lake. From there, I had a 5 day journey to replace one meter on one of a scatter sites, including by train and fixed wing fitted with skis. (Whilst down south, managed to organize a trip down a gold mine and came away with a sample!)
One tale I heard “Tech showing ‘big-knobs’ the pen recorder traces, pointing out the difference between an aircraft and flock of birds. He allegedly said “and this is a flock of geese”” Taken to one side afterwards, was asked “Why say they were geese?” Reply “Wrong time of the year for ducks!”
The death of a Tech by Black Bear must have happened before I arrived. The usual practice for the short visits to a D.D.S. was to ‘go’ outside, otherwise the loo would have to be cleaned before leaving. One day, squatting, black bear was coming towards me as was a caribou “Oo, I wonder which will get here first and do I have time to finish?”.
Jumping off the lattice tower at about 20ft into the snow. One needed knowledge of snow depth and that there were no boulders underneath
. Sun bathing in sub-zero temperatures, just a wind shield
Photo of spirit thermometer with the red stuff culled up in little ball in the glass bit at the bottom (Something like 64 Fahrenheit degrees of frost) AND temperature in high 90’s in summer with those horrid mosquitoes.
Trip up to Churchill.
Address on my driving license “Mile 349, Hudson bay Railway” [I applied for license on the basis on my British one - granted but ‘Do drop in and take a test sometime!]
One occasion we found ourselves bang in the middle of the path of a total solar eclipse.
At the time of Kennedy’s assignation, I heard a tale that someone had a teletype message to “all”:- “The quick RED fox jumped over the lazy imperialist dog’s back” and all hell broke loose. The source of that message was not found (but it was on the Line)
The hairiest moment was landing (in a fixed wing aircraft) at Bear Island (one of our sites, in the mouth of James Bay) with the cloud base BELOW the tops of the –higher than usual – towers. Only one of those towers had a radio beacon. So flew round three times until the pilot was sure (??) he knew where the runway was located and dropping down, out of the clouds, onto land.
In the 2 years, I saved up for air fare back to G.B., a brand new LandRover and half a house. Then, with 6 others, left G.B. for a 3 month trip around N.Africa and the Near East in the LandRover.
The best ever memories are the times that I would stand - in sub-zero temperatures - and watch the Northern Lights.
Barry Twist (Oli) Christmas 2008
Economic and cultural differences between north and south of England sometimes emerge in rustic fashion when individuals from these regions cross paths. Such was the case when a technician from Liverpool and a Londoner shared isolated Mid Canada Line (MCL) radar station DDS 303 in mid-winter, 1958. Neither could suffer the company of the other and discord between them reached a point where one of the belligerents was instructed to return to sector control station at Knob Lake for assignment to another site.
Snow swirled wildly as the H12 helicopter landed. Clutching his kit, the outbound technician sprinted to the ‘chopper’ and crouched at the door as the rotor blades whirled just above his head. He was obviously keen to leave the station. As I emerged, we momentarily blocked each other with a silly Mutt and Jeff dance. The helipad was no place for discussion and in any case, the roar of the engine made conversation impossible. We quickly shook hands and exchanged “Good Luck!” Then, as he scrambled aboard, he bellowed: “You’ll ‘effin’ need it!” I laughed, wondering what I was getting into. I had just left DDS 224, where our family of three (Morris Stawniczy, dog, and I) coexisted splendidly.
My new cohort was small and slight and not suited to heavy physical work. This meant that I alone would have to attend to everything outside the building. Above all, the diesel generators had to have a constant supply of fuel, since they provided electricity and heat for equipment and living quarters. A large cache of 45-gallon drums of diesel replenished four or five 500-gallon fuel tanks. Normally, transfer of diesel would be accomplished with an electric pump located near the tanks. However, a small quantity of water, always present at the bottom of each drum, accumulated in the pump’s housing, causing it to seize after the first few frosts. Consequently, diesel was pumped into the storage tanks by hand, and that hand was mine.
While mindlessly pumping drum after drum, often in blowing snow or a blizzard with temperature as low as –50C, it struck me: the station could not function without my right arm. The generators must be fuelled, and the MCL must not be breached, lest aliens penetrate south of the DEW Line and reach the very heartland of North America.
So many owed so much to that limb. However, I left DDS 303 and the MCL with an asymmetrical upper body. Shoulder and bicep muscles on the right side were much more developed than on the left. I was a freak.
J.K. Leslie
January 2009