The photos in this presentation is contributed by RCMP Mort Doyle

c./Oct 1963 – Jan 1965Thank you

As I understand it, Cape Christian Station was built without an aircraft runway. Concurrent with the building of Cape Christian, the Distant EarlyWarning Line was being built across the center of Greenland, northernCanada and northern Alaska. The addition of runways & ADF beacons every 50 or so miles across northern Canada was a significant upgrade to aviation in the Canadian Arctic. The Station at Cape Christian seems to have requested bulldozers to build a beach runway & clear snow. What was supplied was a number (4?) of used International 18A Bulldozers c/w tropical kits. The crew at Cape Christian fashioned a 2700+ foot runway on the beach. The DEW Line north/south air support [the Vertical] to the four “Main” sites in Canada were operated from Montreal, Quebec & Edmonton, Alberta. The east/west air support [the Lateral] operated from the four Canadian “main” sites of the DEW Line at Cape Dyer, Hall Beach,Cambridge Bay & Cape Parry, NWT using C-47 & C-46 aircraft operated by Nordair. By 1963 the “Vertical” air support for the DEW Line was consolidated at Winnipeg, Manitoba to service the four Canadian mainsites.  When I did police work on the DEW Line in the summer of 1963

I encountered a one year supply of ice cream destined for the USGC Cape Christian. It was in a frozen food reefer aboard the Canadian Coast Guard ship “Narwahl”. I laughed at one year supply of ice cream but within a few months I was helping to eat that ice cream having been posted to the RCMP Detachment at Cape Christian. The Station at Cape Christian was by then receiving a Nordair DC-3 flight once each month, the flight originating from the DEW Line main site at Cape Dyer, NWT [Dye Main]. The DEW Line contractor was Federal Electric Corporation, Paramus, NJ, [Division of ITT Corp] who had leased space in Hanger No. 9 at Winnipeg International Airport, Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was at this hanger that cargo and passengers for the DEW Line went aboard the “Vertical” flights. These flights were weekly or more. A USGC “Chief” had space at this hanger andoversaw movement of USGC personnel & cargo from Winnipeg to Cape Dyer and on to Cape Christian. His efforts kept a monthly supply of fresh food, mail and movies etc coming into Cape Christian. Needless to say the supply efforts kept “us inmates” of Cape Christian in a reasonably sane state. During the time I was there I somehow suspect the man in Winnipeg was “Chief Gray”. Mort Doyle, RCMP (Ret)