Naval Radio Station (NRS) Churchill opened August 1, 1943.Ā Its primary role was to study the ionosphere, and learn how it affected high-frequency direction-finding equipment used to locate submarines in the Atlantic.Ā Churchill was to become a hot spot for people wanting to learn about the upper reaches of Earthās atmosphere.Ā With the end of the war, the Royal Canadian Navy closed down operations.
On December 1, 1950, new interest and new investment saw the construction of a building and a large array of antennae on a 6-acre parcel of land near the railway line.Ā It was to be part of a joint venture with Communications Research to study radio signals, and their unique properties in northern latitudes.
I had noticed a picture of this building while researching what I wanted to see on my trip to Churchill.Ā It looked distinct enough that I recognized it as the train moved slowly over the last stretch of tracks before the station.
During a drive on a later day, I decided to stop in for a look.Ā There was a web of rusted supports that had once been walls that evoked thoughts of Silent Hill, a video claim I had once played.Ā All that was missing was the siren announcing something horrible about to happen.
Yet, despite the fact that so much had been removed, I was still able to piece together what each part of the T-shaped building was supposed to be for.Ā The two floors on the right side of the base of the T were rooms, barracks for those employed there to sleep.Ā The bottom floor on the left side was obviously given over to laundry, boilers, and other mechanical requirements to keep the building operating.Ā The upper floor featured a mess hall, possible a boardroom or similar meeting areas.Ā Finally, the base of the T was where the āmagic happenedā.
While still working with high-frequency direction-finding equipment, NRS, later HMCS Churchill was now predominantly focused on a more clandestine mission: listening in on communications within the Soviet Union.Ā This wasnāt always the best location for such things, particularly during auroral activity, yet clearly enough value was placed on it that it was kept active.
During the latter half of 1955, HMCS Churchill served as a communications relay to a task group of US and Canadian ships supplying the construction of the DEW line in the Foxe Basin.
When I began looking around the two floors of the base of the T, it was apparent that most of the radio equipment, and the standby power for the station were contained here.Ā The upper floor, as I noticed, had one doorway, one set of stairs.Ā Easy to secure, but probably fails fire code of today.Ā The trenches in the floor clearly had contained a large number of cables to the various boxes of radio equipment, the vents, some which were merely dangling overhead, indicated that it generated significant heat that needed to be dealt with.
By June, 1965, many personnel had been transferred to Ottawa or Inuvik.Ā The nature of the work allowed more and more for remote operations, no longer needing to have manpower in the far reaches of the Canadian north.Ā In 1968, operations ended altogether
There were many proposals for what could, or should, be done with the building, but nothing ever came of any of the ideas and it was left to deteriorate on its own.
