Quebec has already housed a nuclear arsenal

Imagine an apocalyptic scenario where, during the Cold War, Moscow attacked the east coast of North America through the North Pole with planes loaded with nuclear bombs. No, it’s not the scenario of a movie, but what haunted the American government of John F. Kennedy in the 1960s. To defend itself, the United States had, among other things, planned to blow up these planes above the heads of Quebecers with nuclear missiles launched from… the Laurentians.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rekindled fears that the Russians would lead an attack through Canada’s Arctic territories.

However, this concern is not new. At the start of the Cold War, in the 1950s, Quebec played a leading role in preventing an attack by the USSR, especially because of the dozens of nuclear bombs placed on its territory.

“It was really the fear that we had in Canada and the United States: the attack would come from the far north, from the Soviet aviation which would send us nuclear bombs”, explains Magali Deleuze, historian at the Royal Military College. from Canada.

To detect these planes, the two countries created a first line of 33 radar stations in southern Canada, the “Pinetree” from the beginning of the 1950s. Quebec had 7.

Spectacular technological advances in the Soviet army quickly made this line obsolete. A second line, “Mid-Canada”, passing among other places in the far north of Quebec, was built, then a third, “DEW”, entirely in the Arctic territories of Canada, was added in the mid-1950s.

There are several remnants of these inoperative sites. Like that of Lac St. Denis, in the Laurentians.

14 Hiroshima

Having detected the enemy, it had to be destroyed.

In the 1960s, the government of John F. Kennedy convinced Canada to plant nuclear bombs that were to be dropped on these planes before they reached cities on the east coast.

Nuclear warheads are placed, among other places, at the Val-d’Or military airport and at the Bagotville base.

“Quebec has become an important region,” said Ms.^me Deleuze, because it is particularly in his airspace that the offensive would be intercepted.

It was at La Macaza, in the Laurentians, that we found the most impressive arsenal.

No less than 28 Bomarc missiles, the first long-range missiles invented by the Americans, were stationed there between 1963 and 1972.

Along with North Bay, Ontario, which also had 28, these two bases were the cornerstone for protecting the east coast of North America.

“We had the equivalent of 14 Hiroshima bombs in our city”, explains Benoit Thibault, municipal councilor at Macaza, is a speaker on the nuclear past of his city. It’s very powerful.”

Get rid of the bombs

In addition to the risk of accident, the use of only one of these missiles would have had disastrous consequences, maintains Mr. Thibault.

“It would have fallen on our heads. There would have been radioactive fallout on Canadian soil.”

Today, the Macaza base has become a penitentiary whose site is closed to the public. Mr. Thibault is campaigning for its remains, including the missile shelters that are still present, to be more accessible to the population.

In 1972, Canada began to divest itself of its nuclear bombs under Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Quebec’s “strategic value” began to “decline” after the invention of intercontinental missiles in the late 1950s, making an airborne threat unlikely, says Stéphane Roussel, Arctic security expert at the National School of Public Administration of Quebec.

According to him, any Russian threat must now be prevented much further north of the country, given the military technologies that would be used, such as cruise missiles or submarines equipped with nuclear weapons.

The La Macaza military base in the Laurentians had 28 nuclear missiles ready to shoot down any Soviet aircraft threatening the east coast of North America. On the first photo, we can see the shelters in which the warheads were stored while two of them are in practice position. On the second, we can see the shelters that are still present today on the site inaccessible to the public.

According to speaker Benoit Thibeault, the launch of a single missile would have caused an explosion so powerful in the air that it could have destroyed several planes flying nearby, even if these were two kilometers from the explosion.

During the nine years that missiles were installed there, several anti-nuclear demonstrations took place in front of the site. A commando from the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) even led an attack on the base in 1965 during which an FLQ member was seriously injured and a policeman kidnapped.

The radar station of Saint-Sylvestre, in Beauce, was one of the seven Quebec stations of the Pinetree line. Today, the site called Domaine du Radar serves as an outdoor station. It pays homage to its past by offering its visitors an experience of visiting the remnants of the Cold War.

An abandoned site

The Lac St. Denis radar station in the town of Saint-Adophe-d’Howard in the Laurentians was the subject of an NFB film called Radar Station, released in 1953. It presented the many employees who operate the station. Today, the site is completely abandoned and covered in graffiti, as evidenced by photos of the site taken by our photographer in 2020.

Val-d’Or airport was a military airbase during the Cold War.

It was one of the places where nuclear bombs were stored. In the first photo, you can see the hangars that housed the bombs being built.

The Bagotville base in Saguenay received its first nuclear warheads in 1965. As in Val-d’Or, this type of bomb had to be transported by military aircraft. It was not until 1984 that the last nuclear warheads left the region. Today, this base is still active and has more than 1,700 military and civilian members.