The Miami Railway Station Museum has secured and relocated a former Cold War-era fallout reporting post (FRP) to its museum.
In the spring of 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the Canadian government began building a nationwide Nuclear Detonation and Fallout Reporting System (NDFRS) to measure the pattern and intensity of radioactive fallout in the event of a nuclear attack on major cities like Winnipeg.
The FRPs were part of the Nuclear Detonation and Fallout Reporting System or NDFRS, a network of small fallout shelters constructed across Canada between 1959 and 1963.
The shelter would allow evacuees from the cities to be directed to the least contaminated areas. Most FRPs were built on government property and would have been staffed by volunteers from government organizations like the RCMP and Mines and Renewable Resources (MRR). Many, however, were operated by private and semi-private organizations like the railways and post office. The one in Miami was operated by CN Rail and would have been staffed by the Station Agent (in this case, Howard Lynds, who ran the station from 1954 to 1966).
As soon as an attack was announced, volunteers were to descend into the FRPs and remain there for up to two weeks, using radiation detection equipment to monitor fallout levels on the surface. This data would be transmitted to filter centres (in Brandon and Pine Falls) for processing before being passed along to the CBC station in the Emergency Government Headquarters (the ‘Diefenbunker’) in Ottawa to be broadcast across the nation.
The plan was to build 2,000 FRPs across all ten provinces, but only 1,200 were completed by 1963, when the project was cancelled due to budget overruns and fatal flaws in NDFRS’s design. For example, communications for many FRPs were by regular telephone lines, which ran through exchanges located in cities likely to be attacked. Thus, if a nuclear war started, much of the system would immediately be rendered useless.
In June of 2022, historian and author Gilles Messier visited Miami Station looking for a fallout reporting post (FRP) that had been buried just west of the station building in the early 1960s and was later removed by the CNR in the early 1970s.
The Miami Museum board had been aware of the post because some residents had been inside it at some time and had told the former board chair, Gordon Docking, about it.
It was Messier’s idea that the Museum replace the shelter with another and use it as an exhibit. The board agreed, and Messier set out to find one that could be moved to Miami.
After researching, Messier found at least four that the Museum could propose to move. Unfortunately, most of these weren’t available for a variety of reasons. The greatest chance was with a FRP at Big Whiteshell. However, due to some issues, this one was not going to be made available to the Museum.
“By this time, it had been over a year of searching and being turned down,” said Joan Driedger of the Miami Railway Station Museum. “Finally, through Gilles’ persistence, the FRP at Moose Lake was made available. It was originally offered to a local museum, but the board reluctantly decided they didn’t have the resources to move and use the FRP as an exhibit.”
The FRP was from Moose Lake, north of Sprague and near the Northwest Angle. It sat on the site of a (since demolished) forestry fire watch tower. A Type B shelter was installed on the grounds of the Miami Railway Station in 1963, but like all railway-operated FRPs, it was demolished in the early 1970s.
The Moose Lake FRP consists of a 10-foot vertical metal tunnel that led down to a horizontal corrugated-metal cylinder, about 14 feet long and eight feet in diameter, that housed the radiation monitoring equipment, storage shelves for food, water, and other supplies, and beds for two people.
Messier and the board finished the necessary paperwork from Manitoba Parks, got permission from the RM of Thompson council to set up the FRP at the site in Miami, and waited for an excavator and mover to be available to move.
“Allan Jones and his crew of Horizon Earthworks did an excellent job of gently removing the FRP and transporting it to Miami and setting it down just west of the Museum, about where the original FRP was buried,” said Driedger.
The FRP is in excellent condition with little rust on the exterior, considering it was buried 60 years ago.
Miami Station Museum plans to eventually make the FRP available for visitors to enter and learn about its proposed use and contents. Messier has done extensive research on the FRP and has been able to locate many of the supplies that would have been in the interior of the FRP and prepared several interpretive panels.
The Miami FRP project seeks to restore the Moose Lake FRP to its period condition had NDFRS become operational, complete with all the proper radiation monitoring equipment, emergency rations, survival equipment and other provisions. As the original entrance hatch and shaft pose a serious injury hazard, a door will be cut in one end of the shelter to allow the interior to be safely accessed by visitors.
“Right now, the board members, my husband Edwin and other volunteers, and Gilles are working on setting up the FRP and protecting it from the winter weather. This journey took eighteen months to get us to this point. There is much more to do, but we are looking forward to completing the whole project early next summer,” said Driedger.
“I must thank Gilles Messier for his persistence, William Prevost of Manitoba Parks for his support and assistance, the RM of Thompson for their advice and patience, and Horizon Earthworks for the willingness to tackle this project and the professional manner that the move was carried out. I also would like to thank the members of the board of the Miami Railway Station Museum for their support and encouragement. It’s been a journey, and it’s not over yet.”
Standard Photos By William Prevost
The Miami Railway Station Museum has secured and relocated a former Cold War-era fallout reporting post (FRP) from Moose Lake, near the Northwest Angle, to its Museum
