The DEW Line

While visiting Cambridge Bay, I had the opportunity to visit one of the remaining operational DEW line sites. I was told that it was run for the most part by non-military personnel and made up of about 60% American and 40% Canadian. There were approx. 30 people on location at any one time and only a few of them were military. The facility is completely self-contained with residences, dining facilities, gym, workout room and even stores. My understanding is that people working go in for 3 month rotations and would work one of 2 shifts. I was also told that the function of the facility is to track movement of aircraft, satellites and anything else moving around in the atmosphere. The person that was giving me a tour of the town was a former employee of the facility, otherwise I may not have been allowed to take a look at this very interesting DEW line site. Below I have included a brief history of the DEW line from the internet.

The DEW Line - short for Distant Early Warning Line - was an integrated chain of 63 radar and communication systems stretching 3,000 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska to the eastern shore of Baffin Island opposite Greenland. It is within the Arctic Circle over ts entire length and for much of the distance crosses country hitherto unexplored.

The DEW Line grew out of a detailed study made by a group of the nation's scientists in 1952 - the Summer Study Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The subject of their study was the vulnerability of the US and Canada to air attack, and their recommendation was that a Distant Early Warning line be built across our Arctic border as rapidly as possible,

The Secretary of Defense asked the President of AT&T if the Bell System would undertake the job of building the line. The assignment was accepted, and the responsibility for the overall management of the design and construction of the line was given to Western Electric. Immediately, Western started recruiting a team to do the job from the Bell Telephone Companies, the long lines Department of AT&T, Bell Laboratories and from Western Electric's own divisions. Before the job was completed, men with the necessary knowledge, skills and experience were drawn from Bell telephone companies in every state in the US. Much of the responsibility was delegated under close supervision to a vast number of subcontractors, suppliers and US military units. It has been estimated that by the time the DEWLine was completed, some 25,000 people had been engaged directly in planning and building it.