RCAF Buildings late 40's vintage, in excellent condition

I don't think these buildings date to WW II. The first buildings at Resolute were set up as part of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations in 1947. The RCAF set up a base in 1949. In the late 1960s and early 1970s some of the RCAF equipment ,such as well-sprung bomb/missile trailers) were in the possession of the weather office and were used mainly to transport weather office supplies during the annual sealifts. The first modern Inuit arrived in 1953 as part of a program by the Canadian goverment to assert its claims of sovereignity over the arctic archipelago. These original 5 families came from what was then Port Harrison Quebec (now called Inukjuak). These buidings look a lot like a couple of buildings that were moved intact on skids behind a couple of bulldozers driving in tandem down the road from the airport to what was then South Camp. There was a group of 3 such buildings at the south end of the tarmac (just north of the Air Hotel complex). Two of the buildings were moved while I was there and the elevated pads that they were on were levelled to expand the tarmac. The 3rd building was converted to a passenger air terminal. There was no military presence in Resolute in the late 1960s and early 1970s except for short survival courses each Spring. I remember a very senior Inuit instructor, known only as Levi, showed the military survival team how to build igloos. He could build a 4-man igloo in a couple of hours. The military men then spent the rest of the day (in teams of 2) trying to build an igloo for the 1st night. The igloo site was a little northwest of the transmitter site.

Louis, Thanks for the correction. Wikki says 1947-49, for the establishment of the JAWS site. I made my first trip to Res in 68, enroute to Alert. Many since. And I was one of those military pers taught the art of igloo building by local Inuit, back in 1976. Yes, it is a short distance from the tx site. But the insructors drove us in a frosty 'Bomb' for a good half an hour or so to get there. Felt like we had driven to Alert. I go to Res (Iqaluit and Inuvik) a couple of times a year to work on a DND radio system. I think I have seen photos of the Lanc that show it far more intact than its current condition. Can you shed any light on that?

Larry

Larry, The US goverment authorized the development of the 5 Joint Arctic Weather Stations in 1946 and the Canadian Goverment passed the necessary act in 1947. The station at Eureka was the 1st to be established in 1947 followed by Resolute the same year. Alert was the last to be established in 1950. When I was in Resolute, the survival camp that operated each Spring was called Crystal City. It was somewhat north of the transmitter site but how much north, I do not know. The military really did not want us visiting during survival training, We would see the military personel for a couple of days at the beginning of the exercise and then for a day or so at the end. The Lanc wreckage that is now apparently near the Upper Air Station may have been moved there from near the PCS building area after I left in 1972. In 1972, I am pretty sure there was no wreckage at the present site. The only thing in that general area northwest of the Upper Air Station was the ANIK satelite communication ground station. This ground station was built and satelite phone service started in the Summer of 1970 while I was at Resolute. Satelite service made it so that anyone at Resolute could simply dial "0" from the phone in his room and get an operator in Ottawa. Before that we had to arrange phone patches through the resident NORDAIR agent and talk like you would on a radio ending exchanges with the word "OVER" so that transmit/receive switches could be thrown all along the patch hops between Resolute and Goose Bay.

Larry, As far as the condition of the Lanc wreckage... Something like this attracks a lot of souvenir hunters. This may have been a reason to move the wreckage away from the immediate airport area. Souvenir hunters take just about anything they consider memorable and not owned by individuals. We had one of the polar bear shaped license plates taken from the Weather Station "Bomb" on the day that a group of students on a chartered tour of the Arctic left Resolute. We didn't notice it missing till a few hours after they had left.