THE DISTANT EARLY WARNING LINE

DEW Line Station

In December 1954, construction began on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, an integrated chain of 63 radar and communication centres stretching 3000 miles from Western Alaska across the Canadian Arctic to Greenland.1 This predominantly-American defence project, designed to detect Russian bomber incursions into North American airspace, was the largest technological undertaking the Canadian Arctic had yet witnessed. The DEW Line was only one in a series of defence projects that Canada and the United States had jointly embarked upon in the Far North since the Second World War.

RADAR Detection in Canada – TOP – The Distant Early Warning Line; MID – The Mid Canada Line (McGill Fence); and BTM the South Canada Pinetree Line.