Cold War military planners had a singular and immediate goal: to build and occupy defensive military sites in the north. Thesis research conducted to date suggests that the Cold War affected the people and the community of Moosonee in both positive and negative ways. It also became the workplace for approximately 60 civilian employees from Moosonee. It became the home for 150 RCAF officers and airmen, their spouses and their dependent children. This base, constructed only a mile or so from downtown Moosonee, operated from 1961 to 1975 (see “Air Photo of Moosonee Pinetree Radar Base, 1962”). Air Photo of Moosonee Pinetree Radar Base, 1962, Department of History and Heritage Archives, Ottawa.īy 1961, Moosonee had its own military base–a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Pinetree radar base known as ‘Sasakipao’. At their peak, these trains running out of Gillam, Manitoba and Moosonee, Ontario used over 400 sleds and over 40 heavy tractors.” Clearly Moosonee was part of Cold War activities long before it hosted a radar base. He wrote that “During the winter of 1955-56 about 11,000 tons of materials were moved …by tractor train. French also described winter tractor train operations. ![]() French then described how Moosonee, became “a new main base of operations.” He emphasized the role of Moosonee as a central operations base by noting that when work was completed much further north, helicopters returned to Moosonee. In Ontario, this meant Moosonee as the furthest north railway line or “end-of-steel”. French described the establishment of “marshalling areas at ends-of-steel “. For example, in the 1958 Roundel, Flying Officer S. Several Mid-Canada Line (MCL) articles referred to Moosonee as a Cold War construction and shipping center. By the mid 1950’s Moosonee had become a shipping centre for more northerly Mid-Canada radar base sites, like Fort Albany and Winisk. O.) connected the town to Cochrane in 1932. ![]() The town site of Moosonee experienced little development until the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T. She states that “The experience and symbolism of community continue(s) to play a major role in the human experience.” My thesis research will attempt to make the same type of linkages by studying Moosonee. Kerry Abel links the concepts of personal and community experiences in her recent writing on Northeastern Ontario. “The Community experience”: This involves an assessment of how the construction of a radar base (adjacent to an existing town) changed the land uses, physical infrastructure, and landscape of the Moosonee area.“The Personal experience”: This aspect will examine personal relationships and everyday life for women and men who lived in Moosonee and on the radar base, and. ![]() Impact(s) will be assessed at two levels: ‘Personal’ and ‘Community’ as follows: My PhD research asks the question “What was the Impact of the Cold War on the community of Moosonee?” The term ‘impact’ refers to the consequences for the community of Moosonee of hosting a radar base. It was a Mid-Canada Line shipping center in the mid-1950’s and it became the site for a Pinetree radar base in 1961. Moosonee is a small northern Cree community located on the Moose River, ten kilometers south of James Bay. My research examines the impact of the Cold War on the near north, with the community of Moosonee, Ontario as a case study. Source: Moosonee Postcards, Paul Lantz website. Town and Moose River in foreground, radar base and domes in the background. Little research has been conducted on the Mid-Canada and Pinetree radar lines. Most of the research on radar lines has focused on the DEW line and the high Arctic. The goal of the radar lines was to monitor Soviet plane traffic across the Arctic in order to intercept planes, armed with atomic weapons, which were intended (presumably) to destroy North American cities. ĭuring the early years of the Cold War, three massive radar lines were constructed across the north: the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line, the Mid-Canada line, and the Pinetree line. Whitney Lackenbauer and Matthew Farish, opened the door to a broader discussion about how military operations and settlements/bases have affected northern people and northern physical environments. Only in the past decade have historians and geographers, like P. To date, little work has been produced on the relationship between military activity in the north and the landscapes, communities and people affected by such activity. This research has focused on resource development (mining and forestry), on small resource towns, and on mega-projects such as the James Bay Hydro Project. Considerable research has been conducted on the Canadian North over the past few decades.
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