Royal Canadian Air Force Station Winisk (RCAF Station Winisk) was a military installation located in

Winisk, Ontario Winisk 90 is a First Nation reserve and ghost town in the Kenora District in Northern Ontario, situated along the Winisk River. It was destroyed in the 1986 Winisk Flood. After the flood, the residents of the Weenusk First Nation were forced ...

. RCAF Winisk was one of eight Sector Control Stations on the

Mid-Canada Line The Mid-Canada Line (MCL), also known as the McGill Fence, was a line of radar stations running east–west across the middle of Canada, used to provide early warning of a Soviet bomber attack on North America. It was built to supplement the ...

system of radar stations. Each SCS received signals from a series of unmanned detection sites located approximately 50 km apart. In Winisk, radio wave signals were transmitted along the chain of stations to the SCS, then to MCL Site 070 Mount Kempis via tropospheric scatter system and finally to RCAF Station North Bay by land line. As there is no road or rail access to Winisk, an airstrip was also built to serve the base (and still exists on the site). Opened in 1957, and fully operational in 1958, RCAF Station Winisk was in operation for just eight years. The eastern portion of the Mid-Canada Line was shut down in 1965 and the Winisk base was closed. Buildings and roads on the site remain.

Environmental legacy

Local First Nations and Timmins-James Bay Member of Parliament

Charlie Angus Charles Joseph Angus (born November 14, 1962) is a Canadian author, journalist, broadcaster, musician and politician. A member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Angus served as the federal Member of Parliament for the riding of Timmins—Jame ...

urged the federal government to clean up the site, which they say is contaminated with

asbestos Asbestos ( ) is a group of naturally occurring, Toxicity, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous Crystal habit, crystals, each fibre (particulate with length su ...

PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * P ...

s and other toxins. In 2006, Angus stated that there are over 50,000 barrels of toxic material and that PCB levels in the soil were 16,000 times acceptable levels. A clean-up operation was conducted between 2011 and 2013.

References

{{Reflist Winisk Air defence radar stations Cold War military history of Canada