After today’s orientation, I went with some friends to see Dr. Strangelove in the Diefenbunker – the infamous Canadian nuclear shelter, built to protect top Canadian military and civilian leadership in the event of nuclear war. Diefenbunker is actually a general term for shelters of the type: the one near Ottawa is called CFS Carp. Apparently, there is also one in Nanaimo, B.C. One odd thing is that the shelter has a multi-room suite for the Governor General. Presumably, Canada would not have much need for a local representative of the Queen, after the actual Queen’s entire realm is reduced to a burnt, radioactive plain.
Tonight’s film was followed up by Pho with three fellow employees of the federal government. It was all a distinct social step forward, and Ashley Thorvaldson deserves credit for organizing the expedition.
You can read about the Cold War movies events on the website of the Diefenbunker Museum.
A bit more on the bunker can be read on this site.
Also, more photos are in this Facebook album.
CBC: Opening up the Diefenbunker
MOLLY VISITS THE DIEFENBUNKER
“The whole place is a standing monument to an overweaning optimism that passes well into the territory of insanity. The command and control centre shows every indication that there would be 1) some sort of surviving and functioning military and governmental structure all across the country that would provide reports to this centre and 2) some surviving way of actually communicating with whatever other deeply buried rabbits might have survived the notoriously bad Russian aim. The unreality of this in an age when the height of telecommunications was phone lines and when a “bunker” is supposedly designed to withstand a nearby hit but no notice is taken of the fact that radio communication presupposes standing transmission towers and antennae-exposed by their very nature- can only be explained by the fact that the whole affair was designed by government. Government, of course, can never imagine its abscense. To the statist mind government is as natural as ground and sky, and they can never inagine a situation where they are totally helpless and irrelevant. The best they can imagine is being defeated by another government which will do what they do, just with different people and policy. Mutual anniliation is beyond their intellectual horizons.”
Thanks for the shout out Milan. I am so glad we went and as usual your beautiful photography crystallizes the memories of the good times. Marc on the rocket is fantastic. And I think your delivery of the “precious bodily fluids” monologue by Jack the Ripper is better than the films!
the multi rooms for the primisnster ect there was an office for the offical office holder then one for the deuty, and then a secretary for both;