Day 18
A visit to the Diefenbunker Canada’s Cold War Museum. Built in 1959-1961 as Canada’s attempt to build a nuclear war shelter for its government officials. The reason for building it was the USA and its relations with the USSR and Ottawa’s proximity to the USA. The shelter is designed to accommodate 500-600 people for 30 days. The guide informed us that at that time the belief was the radiation would dissipate within 2 weeks. Now we know it would not and the $40,000,000 dollars to build it was a complete waste. It is 4 stories reaching a depth of 75 feet. Among the rooms were a hospital, cafeteria, prime minister’s office and bedroom and of course a war room. The computer room was huge with racks of tape rolls four of which were required to store the equivalent of one page in Word format. It is built on shock absorbers to withstand the earthquakes that follow the bomb blast. The entry doors weigh 1 and 2 tons. There is a separate bunker built to house the country’s gold bullion with its door weighing 20 tons. Some priority, gold more important than the people! The rest of the day was grocery shopping and a visit to Starbucks for wifi. The cell reception has been terrible in Canada, even in the big cities. Looks like we may be out of touch a lot when we hit the less populated provinces - not necessarily a bad thing possibly. The weather finally warmed up and jackets not needed. This afternoon I even changed into shorts!
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