Canadian Forces Station Lac St. Denis (also CFS Lac St. Denis) is a former

Canadian Forces Station A Canadian Forces base or CFB () is a military installation of the Canadian Armed Forces. For a facility to qualify as a Canadian Forces base, it must station one or more major units (e.g., army regiments, navy ships, air force wings). Minor i ...

that was located by Lac St. Denis, 60 miles north of

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

in the

Laurentian Mountains The Laurentian Mountains, also known as the Laurentians or Laurentides, are a mountain range in Canada. The range is long and ranges in height from with peaks over . The Laurentian Mountains extend across Labrador and Quebec within the Laurent ...

Construction

The base, at 1674 feet above sea level, was 315 feet higher in elevation than the town one mile away. Lac St. Denis was midway between

Morin Heights Morin-Heights () is a town in the Laurentian Mountains region of Quebec, Canada. It is west of Saint-Sauveur and north of Lachute; municipally, it is within the Regional County Municipality of Les Pays-d'en-Haut. It is primarily a tourist to ...

and St. Adolphe d'Howard on highway 329. The radar station (Site C-2, callsigns Largo, Firefly and Crystal) was one of the oldest of the

Pinetree Line The Pinetree Line was a series of radar stations located across southern Canada at about the 50th parallel north, along with a number of other stations located on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Run by North American Aerospace Defense Comm ...

sites. Construction had begun in 1949. During this time, there was a veil of secrecy imposed by the

RCAF The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Canad ...

as to the real reason for the site. This sparked rumours and speculation among the local inhabitants, including one that the RCAF was building air defence weapons in a huge underground hangar.

RCAF Station Lac St. Joseph

An advance party arrived to open up No. 202 RCAF Radio Station Lac St. Joseph, as it was known in March 1952. It officially opened the following month, and was fully operational by July of the same year. On September 15, 1952, 1 AC&W Squadron transferred its headquarters from

RCAF Station St. Hubert Canadian Forces Base St. Hubert was a Canadian Forces Base in the city of Saint-Hubert, Quebec, Saint-Hubert, Quebec. The base began as a civilian airfield in the 1920s and was later also used by RCAF auxiliary (reserve) squadrons, beginning in th ...

to Lac St. Denis. In October 1952, the site became RCAF Station Lac St. Denis while 202 RCAF Radio Station became 11 AC&W Squadron. At the same time, 1 AC&W Squadron was re-designated 1 Air Defence Control Centre and remained as such until its disbandment, as the Montreal

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ; , CDAAN), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and pr ...

Sector, on 15 September 1962. The station terminated manual operations on 15 September 1962 when it was SAGE capable, and began to report to the Bangor Sector at Topsham AFS, Maine. In September 1963, 11 AC&W began reporting to the Ottawa Sector at

CFB North Bay Canadian Forces Base North Bay, also CFB North Bay, is an Canadian Forces base, air force base located at the City of North Bay, Ontario, North Bay, Ontario about northwest of Ottawa. The base is subordinate to 1 Canadian Air Division, Winnip ...

. At one time a detachment of 1 Radar and Communications School RCAF Station Clinton Ontario were training enlisted personnel as Fighter Control Operators at the station. In September 1965, a new basic trade school to train Air Defence Technicians was formed to meet the forecast trade shortage. By 1973, over 25 courses had been run with almost 500 graduates. 11 AC&W was the operation responsible for the control of all test flights of the CF-104 Starfighters being built at

Canadair Canadair Ltd. was a Canadian civil and military aircraft manufacturer that operated from 1944 to 1986. In 1986, its assets were acquired by Bombardier Aerospace, the aviation division of Canadian transport conglomerate Bombardier Inc. Canadai ...

in Montreal. The aircraft would leave the

Cartierville Airport Cartierville Airport (formerly ) was an airport in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, now a borough of Montreal. The airport (Bois-Franc Field when it opened in 1911 and during World War I) was decommissioned in 1988 and turned into the Bois-Franc neighbou ...

and proceed to the testing area under positive control of Lac St. Denis.

CFS Lac St. Denis

The station, operating as 11 Radar Squadron, changed its name on 10 August 1967 to Canadian Forces Station Lac St. Denis (CFS Lac St. Denis) as a result of unification. In March 1972, CFS Lac St. Denis became a detachment of the North Bay-based Air Weapons Control and Countermeasures School (AWC&CS). Eventually Lac St. Denis acquired the Air Weapons Control and Countermeasures School and they carried on training Air Defence Technicians for two more years. The school was later moved to

CFS Falconbridge Canadian Forces Station Falconbridge (CFS Falconbridge) was a military radar station in the Canadian province of Ontario, active from 1952 to 1985. The station was geographically located in Valley East, Ontario, although the nearest settlement � ...

and then to its current location at North Bay, Ontario. The Canadian NORAD Region's ROCCs, both Canada East and Canada West, commenced operations in August 1984, with Lac St. Denis attached to Canada East.

Closure

The station carried on with its assigned duties until it ceased operations in December 1985. CFS Lac St. Denis was closed on 1 August 1986. Since then various business ventures have tried using the site without ever achieving any long-term success. The site is now abandoned, left open and easily accessible. The old concrete shell, graffiti-covered and in desolate state after fires and water infiltration, is often visited by

paintball Paintball is a competitive sport, competitive team sport, team shooting sport in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them with spherical dye-filled gelatin capsules called Paintball equipment#Paintballs, paintballs that b ...

and

Airsoft Airsoft, also known as survival game () in Japan where it was popular, is a team sport, team-based shooting sport, shooting game in which participants eliminate opposing players out of play by shooting them with airsoft pellets, spherical plast ...

enthusiasts.

References

External links