An Arctic
AdventureIn 1960, I joined the
Federal Electric Company of Paramus New Jersey and went to the Distant Early
Warning Line (DEWLine) as a Radician (Radar Technician). At the time, I was the
youngest technician that the company had ever sent to the Arctic. I celebrated
my 20th birthday at Hall Beach, NWT (FOX Main) and went on to spend three
years, off and on, in that frozen wasteland.After leaving the DEWLine,
I changed my surname from Simon, my adopted name, to Jeffrey, my birth name.
So, anyone trying to locate the former DEWLine Radician by the name of
Brian Simon would be out of luck as I've spent most of my life as
Brian Jeffrey.Some of the many photographs that
I took during my stay in the acrtic can be found in my photo gallery located here.
Just click on this link: DEWLine Photos.If you're a fellow DEWLiner or
just a cold war history buff, I strongly recommend you visit Larry Wilson's
definitive DEWLine web site at: DEWLine Sites in Canada.In addition to a
brief history of the DEWLine below, you'll find some stories from my e-book, "Adventures from the Coldest Part of the Cold War" outlining
some of my adventures as a radar operator/technician on the Distant Early
Warning Line. Just click on a link and away you go.If you want to read the whole adventure, simply click on the title and download the complete 54 page pdf E-book titled: "Adventures from the Coldest Part of the Cold War." (2 Megs).
Either way, enjoy!
- The DEWLine, A Brief History
- Missed Bogie (Target)
- Doctor Brian
- The Case of the Missing Scotch
- The Dancing Washing Machine
- King of the North
- The BOPSR Club
- Shaving Your Teeth!
- The Fishing Expedition
- Christmas at the Real Pelly Bay
- Going Crazy
- The Ghost at the Airstrip
DEWLine Photo Album.
The DEWLine, A Brief History(From an original document by Lynden
T. Harris)The DEW Line - short for Distant
Early Warning Line - was an integrated chain of 63 radar and communication
systems stretching 3,000 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska to the
eastern shore of Baffin Island opposite Greenland. It is within the Arctic
Circle over its entire length and for much of the distance crosses previously
unexplored country. (See the heavy (upper) red line in the drawing
below.)
The DEW Line grew
out of a detailed study made by a group of the nation's scientists in 1952. The
subject of their study was the vulnerability of the US and Canada to air
attack, and their recommendation was that a Distant Early Warning line be built
across our Arctic border as rapidly as possible. Prototypes of several stations
were designed and built in Alaska and in a rural section of Illinois in 1952.
While few of the original designs for either buildings or equipment were
retained, the trial installations did prove that the DEW Line was feasible, and
furnished a background of information that led to the final improved designs of
all facilities and final plans for manpower, transportation and supply.
From a standing start in
December 1954, many thousands of people with countless skills were recruited,
transported to the polar regions, housed, fed and supplied with tools, machines
and materials in order to construct physical facilities - buildings, roads,
tanks, towers, antennas, airfields and hangars - at some of the most isolated
spots in North America. Finally all was ready and on 31 July 1957 - just two years and eight
months after the decision to build the DEW Line, was complete and turned over
to the Air Force on schedule - a complete, operating radar system across the
top of North America with its own dependable communications network.
The DEW Line extended
east and west at roughly the 69th parallel. On the average, it was about 200
miles north of the Arctic Circle and 1,400 miles from the North Pole. Its
western end is anchored on the northern coast of Alaska. The stations were of three types:
main stations, auxiliary stations, and intermediate stations. The main stations
are the largest. Each one is a complete, self-contained community, set in the
middle of nowhere. Like any well planned community in the US or Canada, each
station has its own electricity, water service, heating facilities, homes, work
buildings, recreation areas and roads. But there the similarity ends. The
Arctic dictated what the buildings looked like, how they were built and even in
what direction they faced. Instead of a group of separate buildings, the typical main station
is essentially two long, low buildings connected by an enclosed overhead
bridge, forming the letter "H". At one end, set on steel stilts, is the radome
- a weather tight dome covering the radar antenna. Nearby are the huge
"reflectors" that provide radio communication with the outside world. Living
quarters, recreation facilities, radar and radio equipment and power and
heating plants are all within the main buildings. Each main station had its own
airstrip - as close to the buildings as safety regulations and the terrain
permitted. Service buildings, garages, connecting roads, storage tanks,
warehouses and perhaps an aircraft hangar complete the community.
DEWLine Stories
by Brian Jeffrey, VE3UU (A.K.A. Brian Simon)
Author's Note:
While I was on the
DEWLine, my name was Brian Simon (my adopted name) and anyone looking for me
would know me by that name. After I left the DEWLine in 1963, I changed my
surname to my birth father's name and I've been known as Brian Jeffrey since
then. As a note of personal
pride, when I arrived on the DEWLine in July 1960 at age 19, I was the youngest
Radician to ever be sent North. I turned 20 in August of that year.
Here is a picture of a young Brian Jeffrey (Simon) working on the air/ground transmitters at CAM-4 (1960).
I held the call sign
VE8SK during my time in the Arctic and I was very popular around Christmas time
whenever I went on the air as "VE8 Santa Klaus" (I never could
spell!)The events in these
stories are documented to the best of my memory but the 40+ years since these
adventures occurred may have blurred and/or embellished some of the facts a
bit. These are the incidents
as I chose to remember them. Missed Bogie (Target)
It was the fall of
1961, on a quiet Arctic night. But then most Arctic nights on the DEWLine were
quiet. Tom Billowich and I were half way through the midnight to 8:00 am shift
at CAM Four, (Pelly Bay). It was Tom's turn to man the radar console so I went
off to do some preventative maintenance routines (PM's) on the air/ground
transmitters in the transmitter room. It was somewhere around
4:15-4:30 AM when all hell broke loose. We received a call from FOX Main to do an
immediate Minimum Discernible Signal (MDS) test on both beams of the FPS-19
radar system. There was no mistaking the sense of urgency. I called the console
and asked Tom what was up. "There's something wrong with the radar," he told
me, "We missed a target." I hotfooted it to the
Radar room and did the tests. No problem. The radar was just fine. What was
going on? Back to the console room where Tom told me that both CAM Three and
CAM Five on each side of us had reported the target but we weren't painting it.
I looked at the right-hand screen of the console. We were sure as hell painting
it now. What gives? I asked Tom what was
going on. All he would tell me is that we missed the bogie and he was now in
deep doodoo. He denied dozing off. I sent him off to do another MDS test for
himself and he returned to confirm my earlier results. There was nothing wrong
with the radar. He really was in trouble. There was a lot of
mental and physical hand wringing on Tom's part as he continued to claim that
he hadn't fallen asleep and that there just had to be something temporarily
wrong with the radar. Before the end of the
shift we were informed that Tom should gather all his belongings up and be
ready for pick-up later in the day by the weekly Laterial DC-3 flight and taken to Fox Main. Tom not only gathered
up his things but gathered up his thoughts as well. By the time he was being
driven to the airstrip for pick-up by CF-IQD (an oldie but goodie DC-3), he was prepared to present a
vigorous defence in an attempt to salvage the situation and his job. I shook
his hand and wished him well. Tom never got an
opportunity to present his case. They took him off the lateral flight and put
him directly on the southbound flight, out of the arctic, and out of a job.
Technical failure
aside, there was simply no acceptable excuse for missing a target. Tom missed
the bogie and, in the end, we missed Tom. This is a
photo of the radar console at CAM 4 that Tom was sitting at when he missed the
bogie. That's not Tom in the picture, but a fellow Radician by the name
of Doug Wright. There
were two radar systems (AN/FPS-19's) with antennas mounted back to back. The
scope on the right was the "lower beam" and was monitored 24 hours a day. The
scope on the left was the "upper beam" (high altitude) and was watched only
occassionally or as needed. During the Cuban Crisis we doubled up on the
console watch and monitored both beams 24 hours a day.
Doctor Brian
Being the only Radician
on an I-Site (Intermediate-Site) meant that you were also the first-aid person
as well. These small stations were a lonely existence for most Radicians as the
rest of the station personnel usually consisted of a cook, a couple of
mechanics, one or two general helpers, and an Eskimo family or two.
At CAM-D, (Simpson
Lake, NWT) the Eskimos lived about a half-mile away, halfway between the
airstrip and the few modules that made up the station. CAM-D was nestled on the
flat tundra plain between CAM Three and CAM Four and was the dividing line
between the CAM and FOX Sectors. It was here that I spent several months in
1960-61. An Eskimo woman was
with child, pregnant so to speak, and was growing subtly larger with every
passing month. As she usually stayed in the Eskimo quarters she was generally
out-of-sight and out-of-mind. She became top-of-mind one evening when her
husband brought her to the main building complaining of stomach cramps. Stomach
cramps? How about labour pains? First-aid training notwithstanding, I was not
prepared for this! What to do? The first
challenge was communications. The Eskimo, whose name is long forgotten, didn't
speak very good English and I sure as hell didn't speak Eskimo. No one seemed
to know just how long the lady had been pregnant or when, exactly, she was due
to give birth. I immediately rummaged
around our limited library and found what I was looking for, the St John's
Ambulance First Aid manual. I opened it to the index and looked for 'emergency
childbirth.' There it was. I was saved. I quickly opened it to the emergency
childbirth section and here's what it said: 1) Make patient comfortable.
2) Call a doctor.
Yikes! This I didn't
need. The closest doctor was about 250 mile away in FOX Main. I immediately got
on the horn to CAM Four and had them patch me through to FOX Main where I tried
to locate the doctor. Time stretched on forever as I waited for my saviour to
call. Finally, a call from CAM Four. They had the doctor and were patching him
through to me. He asked me how far along she was. I didn't know. He asked if
she was dilated. I didn't know. Hell, I was only 21 and had never really looked
at these things before! He finally gave his
advice. If it was a boy, I should tie the umbilical cord with a blue ribbon and
if it was a girl I was to tie it with a pink one. I went ballistic. I
told the doctor, in no uncertain terms, that they were to send a plane, now,
either to take her or me out of here. I didn't mind changing klystrons but I
hadn't signed up to deliver babies. After I calmed down
they agreed to send a plane and eight hours later my Eskimo friend was on her
way to FOX Main and competent medical help. I'm sure that both of us were
breathing a lot easier. Postscript to the
story: She really did only have stomach cramps and gave birth to a healthy baby
girl about three weeks after her evacuation. Here is a picture of little Emily Nakoolak with Station Chief Bill Wands after another first aid job by Dr. Brian, taken in Spring of 1961.
The Case of the Missing Scotch
I don't know why Albert
Lemaire coveted his bottle of scotch, but he did. It was as though it was an
Aztec treasure to be displayed and talked about but never to be touched by
others. If Albert had simply kept his mouth shut he might have had a chance to
enjoy his scotch. Albert was a Sector
Electrician and travelled from site to site doing esoteric electrical repairs
that the station mechanics didn't or wouldn't do. He'd been at CAM Four about
10 days and no amount of cajoling or convincing could get him to share the
pleasures of the bottle's contents. We tried buying it off him but to no avail.
It was early on an
uneventful Saturday when the dastardly plot was hatched. Albert was due to
leave the next day and was down at the airstrip doing his electrician thing
when some of the station crew decided to liberate the scotch. We weren't gong
to steal it; we were going to borrow it. We found the bottle
tucked away in Albert's bunk and, using a razor blade, carefully cut the seal
around the screw top. We then transfered the contents to another bottle and
refilled Albert's bottle with a scotch-looking fluid made of tea. As a final
touch, we resealed the top using some clear scotch tape so the bottle would
'crack' as it was reopened sometime in the future. That Saturday evening,
when we were all sitting around the bar/lounge area, one of the guys
'discovered' some scotch behind the bar and offered it to everyone, Albert
included. It was a grand evening. Everyone was getting pleasantly potted on
Albert's scotch, including Albert. The next morning, some
of us, slightly the worse for wear, saw Albert off as he crawled aboard the
plane for the short hop to CAM-D. We waved Albert and his bottle of tea goodbye
and silently when back up to the station. It was a couple of days
later when the radio channel from CAM-D came alive with some of the bluest
language I've ever heard. Apparently Albert had opened his bottle of scotch
only to discover that tea doesn't taste anything like scotch. We turned the
volume down and let Albert rant. If only Albert had kept
quiet about his coveted scotch. The Dancing Washing Machine
It was a big day at
CAM-D. We received a new washing machine to replace the one that had died
several weeks before. Now washing machines
were no big deal unless you're without one for several weeks. By this time,
some of our clothes weren't just standing up by themselves; they were walking
around looking for some fresh air and begging to be washed.
We got the thing off
the plane and into the back of the four-by-four for the one-mile trip to the
main site. The Eskimos wanted the packing case for something so they quickly
spirited the material away, never to be seen again, leaving us to manhandle the
heavy, commercial-grade unit, into the building. We squeezed the unit
through the doorways and into the kitchen/eating area module where we placed it
approximately where the old machine had been. We were all anxious to give it
its first workout. While the cook prepared the final touches to supper, we put
in our first load. A big load. It was while we were
all eating around the small table that the trouble started. All of a sudden,
the machine went into its high-speed spin cycle and took off, dancing and
hopping around the room. The imbalance of the wet clothes in the drum had
turned this normally docile machine into a mechanical bucking bronco. After the
initial surprise wore off, three of us jumped on top of the machine to try and
contain it before it did too much physical damage to the facilities.
There we were, all
three of us, hanging on for dear life as this killer washer tried to buck us
off and trample us. It just kept on dancing and bucking for what seemed forever
until it finally moved far enough that the power cord came free from the wall
outlet and the machine, thankfully, calmed down. As we surveyed the
damage we realized why we had put the machine approximately where the old
machine had been and not exactly where it had been. There were concrete blocks
in the way. In our zeal for clean clothes, we had forgotten that the old
machine had been mounted on these blocks. Now we knew what the blocks were for.
They weren't to just raise up the machine as we had thought; they were to keep
the machine from dancing away with our clothes. No one said much as we
unloaded the machine, mounted it on the concrete blocks, and went back to
finish supper with the new washer humming gently in the background.
This is a picture of the kitchen area. The Dancing Washing Machine can be seen on the right of the photo. That's Chef "Red" Chenil doing his stuff.
King of the North
It was like a scene
from a bad movie. There I was, not knowing what to do when King of the North in
the form of an RCMP constable showed up at the door and saved the day.
It started earlier
that evening. As the only Radician at CAM-D, I doubled, hesitantly, as the
first-aid person. One of the Eskimos brought his 4-year old daughter up to the
main modules with a crushed finger. Apparently little Emily had gotten her
finger caught in a door and basically squeezed it enough that it had broke open
at the top. Albeit it small, it was
a pretty nasty looking wound and, in cleaner southern clime, it might not have
been too much of a problem. Having seen the Eskimo quarters, I was afraid of
Emily getting an infection and losing her finger or perhaps her hand.
According to the
station's St John's Ambulance First Aid manual, I was to give her a shot of
penicillin. OK, but where? I had three ampoules of penicillin and a needle but
no instruction as to where to inject it. I'd always gotten my
penicillin shots in the butt. However, as I was never watching when it
happened, I wasn't sure exactly where in the butt to stick it. This is where
King of the North came into the picture. Now picture this. I'm
located about 120 miles above the Arctic Circle, about 50-70 miles from the
nearest Auxiliary site, and 250 miles from a doctor who wasn't available
anyway, when there's a banging on the module's main door. In walks this RCMP
constable who had just parked his dog team - yes, a dog team - in front of our
building, and he wants to know if he can bed down for the night with us. Is
this out of Hollywood or what? I welcomed him with
open arms because I knew that RCMP personnel have extensive medical and
first-aid training. I quickly explained my mini-medical emergency to him and he
took charge. He gave the shot to Emily, bandaged her finger, and calmed her
down. Another life saved in
the nick of time by King of the North. The BOPSR Club
As a member of the
Sector Crew responsible for looking after the air/ground radios, I didn't
really have a place to call home. The members of the Sector crew were usually
constantly on the move, going from one station to another across the sector,
looking after their assigned group of equipment. We were usually thrown on the
plane right after the movies and mail and got off the plane immediately after
them. If we had a home, it
was the BOPSR Club at FOX Main. (BOPSR comes the name of a form called the "Building & Outside Plant Status Report.") The BOPSR Club was a single leftover module
that sat, all by itself, about 200 feet from the main module trains. It had
electricity, a space heater, 8-10 bunks, and that's about it. Oh, it had one
other thing. It had a urinal of sorts, but more about that later.
Whenever members of the
sector crew were in FOX Main, they stayed in the BOPSR Club. As it was rare
for the whole crew to be at FOX Main at the same time the bunks were often used
by personnel coming up from the south while they waited lateral transportation
to their assigned sites. Newcomers to the Line
who stayed in these less-than-posh quarters were easy prey to the old timers
who, in exchange for their booze, would spin tales of life in the north.
Back to the urinal for
a moment. As the module had no washroom facilities and as it was a long, cold,
200-foot walk to the main building, some enterprising soul had built an
enclosed veranda-like addition through which he stuck a metal funnel so one
could relieve themselves without freezing anything. The funnel had a hose that
ran to a fifty-gallon drum. This wasn't a problem in the winter when everything
froze very quickly but in the summer when this drum thawed out we all stayed on
the road and away from the club. Not a pleasant aroma for a while.
It was the winter of
1962. I and a couple of other sector crew members were between trips and hiding
out in the BOPSR Club when we were blessed with a couple of newbies fresh up
from the south and bearing gifts (booze). I rarely drink unless
it's there and if it's there I drink. It was there and I drank. Every now and
then, one of us would get up and go use the urinal in order to make more room
for the booze. Now, I don't know about you but the more I drink, the drunker I
get and the drunker I get, the sleepier I get. On one of my trips to
the urinal, I fell asleep standing up and a part of my body, which will remain
nameless, came in contact with the metal funnel. Anyone who was a kid,
particularly of the male variety, knows that when a part of your body, your
tongue for example, comes in contact with frozen metal, you stick to it. That's
what happened to me. I awoke instantly only
to find myself attached to the funnel. What to do? I tried spitting to see if
the warm saliva would free me from my bounds. No luck. Finally I did what every
young child does when they find their tongue stuck to the metal fence or pole,
I pulled away, leaving a small part of me still attached to the metal funnel.
Fortunately, alcohol
has an aesthetic property that helped dull the pain. I've always claimed that,
hadn't this accident happened, I would have been a danger to all womankind
(don't I wish). This is a
photo of FOX Main. The BOPSR Club is the small building in the circle at the
top right.
Shaving Your Teeth
Brian Webb didn't just
like to drink, he liked to get smashed. This didn't usually cause a problem
except on Saturday night, or more importantly Sunday morning, when he was
supposed to relieve me from Radician duties. It was a typical
Saturday evening at CAM Four and the station personnel were gathered in the
recreation module areas enjoying a few drinks and games of pool and cards. I
had to go on duty at midnight so I was drinking pop while most of the others,
including Brian, imbibed of the devil's brew. The evening festivities
went on well after I went on shift at midnight and every now and then I dropped
down to the recreation module to see how things were going. What wasn't going
was Brian. He wasn't going to bed. I mentioned to him that he was to relieve me
in a few hours and he might want to get some sleep. My pleas fell on deaf ears
and a sodden mind. I was getting annoyed. On one of my trips to
the recreation area I carried on to my sleeping quarters, which were across
from Brian's. I got a tube of shaving cream from my room, went across to
Brian's room, found his toothpaste and carefully transferred a slug of shaving
cream from my tube into his toothpaste tube after which I went chuckling back
to work. 8:00 am came but Brian
didn't. Nine passed, then ten. Finally, at around 11 am a bleary-eyed,
dishevelled, somewhat-still-drunk Brian appeared. As he mumbled a good morning
into my face I caught the smell of booze, bad breath, and shaving cream. I
asked him if he had shaved his teeth that morning. He looked at me quizzically,
mumbled something, and plopped himself down in front of the radar console and I
went off the bed. It was later in the day
when the final act of the play happened. I was sitting in the toilet when a now
sober Brian appeared holding his toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. Oh no, I
thought. This can't be happening before my eyes as I strained to see through
the crack of the toilet door. It was, it was. He was going to brush his teeth!
It only took a few
seconds but now that he was sober, Brian could actually taste the shaving
cream. It wasn't a pretty sight so I'll spare you. I enjoyed every minute of
it. Of course Brian accused
me of putting shaving cream into his toothpaste tube but I denied any knowledge
of it. In the end, he was
never sure enough to take revenge on me. But I was very careful about where I
hid my own toothpaste until I left the site.
Typical recreation area at an AUX
site. This particular picture was taken at FOX-2 (notice the fox and two
glasses on the front of the bar). This was the center of social activity on
Saturday nights. Although there wasn't supposed to be (officially) any hard
liquer in the Arctic, each station managed to keep its bar fairly well stocked.
The Fishing Expedition
It was one of those
rare days off that we occasionally got and Tom Billowich convinced me that we
should walk the six miles down to the CAM Four airstrip and do some fishing for
Arctic char. I protested the long
walk but Tom said we could take a short cut via the old road and besides; the
people at the airstrip could give us a drive back. So we got the station's
fishing gear and off we went. We were about half way
to the airstrip when I noticed the people driving up the main road back to the
station. So much for our ride back. I was starting to be an unhappy camper.
We finally got to the
lake by the airstrip. Tom was the first to cast his line. It went out about 15
feet and came to an abrupt stop. That was all the line he had on his reel.
Hardly long enough to reach the water. No problem. I still had my rod and reel
and it looked pretty full. I'm not a fisherman but
I'm usually game to try things so I cast my line with all the vigour I'd seen
other fisherman do. Out the line went and then it just kept on going. No one
had attached it to the reel! Both Tom and I watched as my hook, line, and
sinker went flying out over the lake to disappear forever. It was a long, quiet,
six-mile, uphill walk back to the station. I didn't talk to Tom for a few days
and I've never been fishing since.Photo of CAM-4
(Pelly Bay, NWT). The four black dish antennas (one is hidden) were for
station-to-station, lateral communications. The two antennas on the tower were
for the gap-filler (dopplar/fluttar) radar system and the round radome
contained the primary (FPS-19) radar antennas.
Christmas at the Real Pelly Bay
Father Vandeveld had
been in the Arctic longer than I had been alive. This venerable gentleman had
spent over twenty years in the Arctic, most of them at the Pelly Bay Mission.
He was to give me one of my most memorable Christmases ever.
CAM Four, Pelly Bay, is
located about 10-12 miles north of the Pelly Bay Mission that Father Vanderveld
called home. You could always tell when people from the Mission visited the
station because they only had to be in the building for a few moments before
the air circulating system alerted us that either the Eskimos from the Mission
had arrived or someone had left a dead seal in the entranceway.
One such visit brought
with it an invitation to visit the Mission on Christmas Eve to join in the
festivities. A group of 8-10 of us accepted and on the appointed day, we all
climbed into the Bombardier SnowPig and drove to the Mission.
There were about 120 or
so Eskimos living in and around the Mission at that time. What they had done in
preparation for the occasion was to build four fairly large igloos in a square,
placing them about 30 feet from each other. They then built a huge igloo using
the four smaller ones as corner pieces. They completed the structure by
removing the now interior walls of the four small igloos, leaving a huge 50
foot round igloo with four small alcoves. The entire Mission, all
120 of them, were in the igloo that evening. A mass of humanity for Christmas
Mass. They sang and played games. They had a piñata-like object hanging
from the top of the structure and all the Eskimo children had an opportunity at
being blindfolded and had a try at smacking it with a stick. When one of the
children did finally hit it, all manner of treats rained down on the
spectators. As strangers and
visitors, the people from CAM Four stayed in the background, observing and
enjoying the simple pleasures of the event. It was a touching and moving
experience. On the return journey
to the station in the snowmobile, one of the Eskimos offered me a frozen
'treat.' I thanked him and as I munched on the treat and it began to melt in my
mouth, I realized that it was a piece of raw frozen fish. I don't like raw
fish. To this day, I'm not a
big fan of sushi (raw fish), but whenever I have the opportunity to taste some,
I'm transported back to that quiet evening many years ago and remember
Christmas at the Real Pelly Bay. Going Crazy
No one knows just when
Phil C. went crazy but crazy he went and I was designated to replace him.
People go off the deep
end for many reasons, some psychological, some medical, some who knows? While
I've always contended that you had to be a bit crazy to be a DEWLiner, the
Federal Electric Corp took great pains to put DEWLine candidates through a
series of psychological tests to weed out those who might crack under the
strain of being isolated for long periods of time. Phil was a Radician at
FOX Three, Dewar Lakes, and was a likeable person. I had met Phil on a number
of occasions as I travelled across FOX Sector as part of my Sector Crew duties
and I liked him. Apparently Phil didn't
drop off the deep end quickly; he sort of slid into craziness slowly. It
started with Phil complaining about the "little people" who were trying to get
him. Other station personnel thought he was just kidding around. As the day
went on, Phil's complaints got more and more persistent. Now the "little
people" were coming up through holes in the floor of his room. He was beginning
to see them in odd places. Towards the end, Phil took to carrying a carving
knife from the kitchen to protect himself. The last straw happened when they
found Phil on top of the module train chasing the "little people."
Then two things
happened. They put in an urgent call for a replacement and the weather
immediately closed in. I sat in the BOPSER
Club at FOX Main for four days waiting for the weather to lift. Meanwhile, at
FOX Three, they had Phil tied to a stretcher and had to let him shout and
scream until he would finally tire himself out and fall asleep.
On the fourth day, the
weather lifted enough to allow the mail and I to be thrown onto the DC-3 for
the trip to FOX Three. It was a tense group that greeted us on our arrival.
Phil was there, all bundled up in his parka, busily doing something. I went
over and greeted him. He looked sane but had a slight far away look to his
eyes. I asked him what he was doing. He told me that he was trying to get the
fluid out of his lighter and that you couldn't fly with fluid in your lighter.
OK Phil, whatever you say! On the return trip to
FOX Main, Phil was seated next to a military person who wasn't familiar with
Phil's condition. Phil asked if he had a razor blade. The guy found one in his
shaving kit and gave it to Phil who promptly tried to cut his own wrists. There
was a scuffle and the razor blade was taken away from Phil and he was
restrained. About this time the
weather at FOX Main closed in and the plane had to land at FOX Two to wait it
out. Apparently the "little people" had followed Phil and the personnel at FOX
Two were treated to a night of Phil's ranting. They finally got to FOX
Main and put Phil on the southbound trip to a hospital in Winnipeg. It turned
out that Phil had tonsillitis and the infection had poisoned his system causing
him to have delusions. Phil wasn't really crazy, just sick. While I'm not sure,
I believe Phil ultimately returned to the line to continue his duties as a
Radician. Meanwhile, I was given
Phil's old room at FOX Three and took over his duties. Having a rather strange
sense of humour, I complained about the holes in the floor of my new room and
items that were left behind by the "little people." No one laughed.
The Ghost at the Airstrip
Some things simply aren’t supposed to happen.
It was about 1 am on a typical August morning at DEWLine station FOX-3, also known by its geographical name
of Dewar Lakes, NWT, and the overnight shift was unfolding as it should when it happened.
I had already finished my four hours of watching the FPS-19 radar in the console room and was busy doing
maintenance on the air/ground radios when the console operator, my shift mate, called me to the console room.
I ambled in to the console area and asked, “What’s up?” What was up was the telephone at the old airport
terminal building was giving an off-hook signal but when we answered the line there seemed to be no one there.
The telephone relay on the 755 PBX just kept clacking away trying to make a connection. Clickity-clack,
clickity-clack, clickity-clack, on and on. Who (or what) had removed this long, unused, telephone from it’s
cradle at the airport six miles away?
After much discussion it was decided that a volunteer (me) should go down to the airport and see what was up.
So off I went in the USAF, blue coloured 4X4, bouncing my way down the dirt road to the airport.
As usual, the road conditions made for a slow trip down to the airstrip which gave my fertile mind far
too much time to conjure up what might have caused the off-hook condition. It could have been something as simple
as the wind having blown the receiver from the cradle, or as big as a polar bear ambling into the abandoned building
and causing havoc, or worse, some axe-wielding lunatic, ready to trap and and kill the first thing that
walked through the door. I have no idea where this axe-wielding lunatic would have come from but he was alive
and well in my imagination by the time I arrived at the terminal building, alone.
Now, the old and abandoned terminal building was located at the far, unused end of the airstrip. Over the years,
a small babbling stream had developed separating the strip and the building.
There I sat, sitting in the 4X4, looking across the stream at the abandoned building with every blood-filled scene from every horror movie I’ve ever seen passing through my mind. Fortunately, I was a young man and hadn’t seen that many horror movies but I’d seen enough to let my imagination go wild.
So, with great trepidation, I climbed out of the 4X4, mud clinging to my boots as I forded the stream, and
found myself standing at the front door of the old airport terminal building. I tentatively pushed open the
door and stood there looking at my shadow in the doorway as I tried to see into the darkness ahead. I chided myself for not bringing a flashlight with me.
There was just enough light to see that there appeared to be no one there. He was hiding. I just knew it.
I screwed up my courage and stepped into the building. So far, so good I thought. As I glanced around the empty
building it suddenly happened. The telephone rang!
I jumped so high that only the weight of my mud caked boots kept me from hitting the ceiling or taking off
like a scared jackrabbit. I’m sure my heart must have stopped for a moment or two.
I traced the source of the ringing and answered it. It was the console operator. Apparently, the off-hook
condition had just cleared itself and he thought I had done something and was calling to see what I had done.
Apart from almost defecating in my pants, I hadn’t done a thing.
I hung up the telephone and took off as fast as my muddy boots would allow. As I drove back to the main
building I wondered, once again, who or what had caused the off-hook condition. Now I know.
It was the ghost of DEWLiners past, waiting in the terminal building for the lateral flight to take them
to FOX Main and the journey south.
