1 post tagged “carp”

Spent the afternoon visiting the Carp "Diefenbunker" Museum with the family.  Since I once worked in a bunker of sorts, I found this a pretty cool museum.  I picked up a cool "One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day" t-shirt and a RADIAC Calculator from their gift shop.

In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, Carp was selected as the site for one of the Emergency Government Headquarters (also known as "Diefenbunkers") complexes being constructed across Canada.  The Carp facility would be the largest of such facilities, and the only one in the immediate Ottawa area. Construction began in 1959 in an abandoned gravel pit outside Carp.  The underground 4-storey bunker was capable of withstanding a near-hit from a nuclear explosion. It had massive blast doors at the surface, as well as extensive air filters to prevent radiation infiltration. Underground storage was built for food, fuel, fresh water, and other supplies for the facility which was capable of supporting more than 500 people for weeks. A vault was also constructed on the lowest level to hold the gold reserves of the Bank of Canada.

The bunker was decommissioned in 1994, the local municipality took control of the facility, and a group of local volunteers, recognizing the heritage and tourism value of the Carp Diefenbunker, undertook to open the facility as a cold war museum.