Caution Radiation!

I was looking at the radar station at CYYC (Calgary International) one day while driving home from the airport and was intrigued by the structure. Looking online, I was curious to see what the inside of a primary radar station looked like. Some Google searches led me to a random site dedicated to the Pinetree Line, a series of military radar stations that were set up across North America to give early warning of a missile attack during the Cold War. The radar station is one of the only ones still standing and is, I believe, the most preserved one (mostly because it's truly in the middle of nowhere).

The drive was long and boring. Three hours across open prairies. When I first saw the massive structure on the horizon, I didn't realise it was still 30km away. haha. I drove up to the front gate and parked. The fences were guarded by razor wire, but the gate was quite plain and was bent up enough to allow me to squeeze through it.

Stepping in it for the first time, I noticed that it was already quite trashed on the lower level. I was already worried that the inside of the dome would look like crap from loads of graffiti. Luckily, there was nothing more than some smashed boards. The first floor gave me a startle as I came within close proximity to an owl. I soon noticed that there was absolutely nothing inside the room. Everything cool that likely used to be inside was stripped out. No mapping tables, no screens or even machines that go 'Bing!' were inside. I guess it makes sense because it was a military building.

The second floor was similar to the first; open, bare and kind of disappointing. I made my way of a crazy ladder which led through a foot of concrete flooring and into the radar dome. The inside of the dome was staggeringly huge. Every step I made was followed by a crazy echo from the dome walls. The radar was missing its dish, but was still really big. Again, not a whole lot of stuff inside the room, but it was still amazing to look at. The dish (or.. what's left of it) was mounted on a rotating base that you could actually move by hand. This proved handy for repositioning the radar during pictures.

I poked around during the day, took some photos and later went into the nearby town to have a quick meal and wait for it to get dark. The town's only restaurant looks like a copy of Corner Gas. A gas station-restaurant that served Chinese-Western food. They make a great burger, although the place was kind of odd because there were nearly a dozen cats wandering around outside the gas pumps (seriously).

Night came slowly and I returned to the radar station for some classic light-painting. After a few hours and many pictures, I left. I felt a great deal of accomplishment as I drove away. Not only did I know what the inside of a radar dome looked like. I was in one.