Early Diefenbunker / Canada in the Cold War Museum
Attempts were made early on as we were setting up the Museum to create a Diefenbunker website with appropriate Cold War Canada related information. For a while in those early days as a Museum we had the elements of such a site. See this Internet Archives Wayback Machine ‘capture’ link for an example page (2005) of the then-nascent website. Click on Home to get the general site (be aware that some of the associated links may not be active…it’s old stuff!).
Canadian Civil Defence Museum
The Canadian Civil Defence Museum Edmonton based at the former AlSask air defence radar site (virtually on the Alberta / Saskatchewan border). Besides having the AlSask physical location to collect and display relevant Cold War artifacts and archives, the website is crammed with all kinds of links, photos, videos and text mainly centered around Canadian Civil Defence during the Cold War “Preserving, protecting, and presenting the Canadian Civil Defence emergency preparedness history”. Fred Armbruster is the founder and Executive Director. Given his limited resources, I believe he has done (and continues to do) a very good job in putting this together. I would like to especially recommend visiting their cold war YOUTUBE videos page with its extensive collections of relevant videos and slideshows. Also they have a very good “Canadian and USA Links Section”.
The Canadian Arctic Early Warning Radar Dew Line
Dew Line Adventures (Adventures from the Coldest Part of the Cold War). This is the true story of one person’s involvement in a very small part of what was known as the Cold War. That small part was about a group of people who watched over the North American continent from radar sites in the far north.
“CampX” Website on Spies & Cryptology
Richard Brisson’s website is “… intended to reflect a portion of my personal collection of items/artifacts which relate to cryptology, vintage clandestine or espionage tradecraft, and communications technology particularly equipment used by the major powers during the Cold War and by the Canadian military during WW-II. This collection has been accumulated over the last 20 years or so. You will also notice an emphasis on vintage children’s decoders and spy toys over the years starting with the decoder badges and instruction manuals associated with Radio Orphan Annie and Captain Midnight starting in the 1930’s with radio reception become popular especially in American homes.
Another partnership ensued with the Diefenbunker (see above) in Carp (near Ottawa, Ontario) to launch a “Spy Tools” exhibit. The exhibit was in place from February 2002 until early September 2002. The display was expanded to a 2-room display to accommodate children’s clandestine toys over the years – that included items such as Secret Sam, Batman cards, James Bond, Spiderman and Get Smart. A local television station CJOH aired a short piece related to this Diefenbunker exhibit and this collection on 27 April 2002 during “Regional Contact”.
The Civil Defence League of Canada
“The Civil Defence League of Canada is a non-governmental… initiative promoting citizen-centric civil defence in a world where major nuclear warfare is again a credible threat. We encourage broad public education in personal safety know-how for nuclear attack scenarios. We advocate for community fallout shelter programs as well as general preparedness for other types of disasters and emergencies. And we maintain it is vital to protect our electrical grid from a nuclear or natural EMP which, according to official estimates, could in effect take down our civilization for a year or more, resulting in the deaths of up to 90 percent of the North American population. Above all else, we work to revive nuclear civil defence preparedness on the part of officials, emergency responders and everyday Canadians – measures that could save millions of lives in the event of a nuclear attack on North America”. They also offer free courses in related topics.
