The Visit to RCAF Station Edgar

On the weekend on April 13, 2019, my friends and I decided to go up to visit a friend in Barrie, Ontario. Little did we know that it was going to be the experience of a lifetime. Our Barrie friend decided to take us to an abandoned military base just 20 minutes out Barrie a called RCAF Station Edgar.

RCAF Station Edgar played an important role in the defence of Canada for 12 years becoming operational in 1952. Originally called No. 204 RCAF Ratio Station, it was the most southern station of the Pinetree Line. The Pinetree Line had three early-warning detection lines that protected Canada against a Soviet air attack. The other two lines were located on the east coast, southern Ontario and Quebec.

The Pinetree Line stations were a lot smaller than the full-size military base but they were still self-contained towns. They had a standard military house and a barracks. Also contained within the stations were an infirmary, a fire hall, a water treatment plant, auto repair shop, a school, a recreation centre with a swimming pool and bowling alley, a chapel and many other buildings.

One month after becoming operational it was re-designated No. 31 Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron also known as RCAF Station Edgar. It served as a ground-control intercept station as well as an early-warning detection station. It tracked the incoming Soviet bombers or missiles and then dispatched and directed the fighter interceptor to take down the threat. 

In the early days of the station until 1961, they used a large plotting board in the Operations Control Centre to manually track the movement of all the aircraft. In 1961, the manual system of tracking was replaced by the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system which was a computer that tracked the height, speed and direction of the enemy targets. It also relayed the information to the Sector Control Headquarters.

In March 1964, the station was closed because of equipment upgrades in the Pinetree Line. RCAF Station Edgar and RCAF Station Foymount were now able to cover the area that the Edgar station covered.

In 1950, the Ontario Government bought the land for around $218,000 and turned it into the Edgar Adult Occupational Centre for handicapped adults. It closed down in 1999 and has been abandoned ever since (Barrie Advance , 2006).

When we arrived at RCAF Station Edgar, I was unsure of what it could be. It just looked like an old abandoned lot. There was no sign of what it had been. There was only a couple of buildings that looked like they haven’t been maintained for many years. The only reason I knew it was an abandoned military base was that my friend told me. Once he told me what it used to be, I pictured buildings, people walking around and driving cars and wondered why it was left to rot in this state. I also wondered if one day it would be functional again. I didn’t think that is was going be a military base or an adult occupational centre again but something else that requires distance from the big city. Maybe it could be turned into prison or private school.

As we entered the compound, we saw a burnt down building on the left side. My friend told me that it must have burnt down recently because it was standing when he came last. I think that it used to be the building that people used to sign in when they entered the compound as it was close to the front gate. We did not go inside as it would be too dangerous, but we did see a brave orange cat just relaxing in there. It was taking refuge in the old abandoned burnt down building. It was seeing a use for a building that no one ever even has thought about for years.

Picture 1: The First Pathway 

The first picture shows the path that we walked down. It was taken at the end of the first road looking towards the gate. The burnt down building in the previous paragraph is at the end of the road on the right-hand side. It is quite small in the picture but it represents the vastness and emptiness of the abandoned property. Other than the burnt down building, there is no evidence that anything else had been built along that road.

Picture 2: The Second Building Front Pathway

After that, we walked up to the building at the end of the road. It did not look welcoming. There were leaves on the walkway to the main entrance even though it was the last week of winter.  Have they been waiting there all winter long? Or, have they been there for years and have not broken down yet? There was also graffiti on the walls meaning that people have been here since it was closed down. Unlike us, who tried not to touch anything and wanted to keep everything natural, the people before us simply did not care about the history of the place and instead wanted to leave their mark. 

Picture 3: The Front Door 

As we began to get closer to the front door, we felt that it was becoming to get more welcoming as the front door was open. It felt as if the building was inviting us in.  The building wanted us to see its history even though it was in quite a state of disrepair.  The more we got closer to the building the more that it looked like the people who visited before we wanted to damage the history of this place by spraying paint all over the walls.

Picture 4: The Hallway

  When we entered the building, I was beginning to wonder what it had been used for. Then I saw the stage as it used to be the auditorium. The stage, shown in picture four, is in the far back beyond the wall frame, was about six inches high and was around 100 square feet in size. When I saw it, I pictured bands, plays and speeches being given. Since the room was relatively small for a stage, I also wondered how many people could fit in the room and why make so small? I also noticed more deterioration as the plaster had fallen off the walls and the ceiling was falling down.

Picture 5: The Messy Room

The last room we looked at was full of debris. People who went exploring before us would leave things behind creating even more of a mystery to the room. Some of the things we encountered were water bottles, spray-paint cans and beer cans. Why would they come all this way just to leave their garbage lying about? We were careful not to add anything to the mess as it would have created an even more unsafe safe and unsightly for the next adventures. 

 When we were done looking at the buildings, we walked around the rest of the compound but did not find much else of interest. Everything else seemed to have disappeared with either time, torn down, or burnt down. We will never know what happened to all the buildings that were there before.

The poem, Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens perfectly explains the feeling I felt when entering the compound. In the poem, Stevens describes that once the jar is put on a hill, it no longer makes the hill wild. It is almost as if the jar turns the hill into part of human civilization (Stevens, 1919).  When I entered the compound, I could feel that the place would never be part of the wilderness again because of the concrete roads, the falling down the building and the garbage is thrown there. It was always going to be tainted by people.

The visit also reminds me of the poem, The Wood Pile by Robert Frost. In the poem, he comes across a wood pile that has been there for years and wondered why someone would go to all the effort of cutting all the wood just to leave it there (Frost, 1912). During my visit, I saw what looked like downed wooden telephone poles and I wondered why they would leave them here. They looked like they were in pretty good shape. Why weren’t they being used elsewhere instead of cutting down more trees?

Overall, I did enjoy the experience of seeing the past come back to life through the objects and buildings that they once lived in. RomanWG explains it best, “The artifacts (sic) scattered in the ruined factory give glimpses of the life in the place, and the life of the place means the people who used it how they did so” (RomanyWG, 2012). Nothing tells the story better of how people used to live than the objects and buildings that they left behind.

References

Barrie Advance . (2006, December 15). Edgar station has a storied history. Retrieved from Simcoe webstie : https://www.simcoe.com/community-story/1990981-edgar-station-has-storied-history/

Frost, R. (1912). The Wood Pile .

RomanyWG. (2012). Beauty in Decay . Carpet Bombing Cutlure .

Stevens, W. (1919). Anecdote of the Jar.