Royal Canadian Air Force Station Winisk (RCAF Station Winisk) was a military installation located in Winisk, Ontario

Winisk, Ontario

Winisk is a small ghost town in extreme Northern Ontario, situated along the Winisk River. It was destroyed in the 1986 Winisk Flood. After the flood, the town was re-located to Peawanuck, Ontario, 30 km inland....

.

RCAF Winisk was one of eight Sector Control Stations on the Mid-Canada Line

Mid-Canada Line

The Mid-Canada Line, also known as the McGill Fence, was a line of radar stations across the "middle" of Canada to provide early warning of a Soviet bomber attack on North America. It was built to supplement the less-advanced Pinetree Line, which was located further south...

 system of radar stations. Each SCS received signals from a series of unmanned detection sites located approximately 50 km apart. In Winisk, radio wave signals were transmitted along the chain of stations to the SCS, then to RCAF Station Ramore via tropospheric scatter system and finally to RCAF Station North Bay by land line. As there is no road or rail access to Winisk, an airstrip was also built to serve the base.

Opened in 1958, RCAF Station Winisk was operational for just seven years. The eastern portion of the Mid-Canada Line was shut down in 1965 and the Winisk base was closed.

Environmental issues remain at the abandoned base. Local First Nations and Timmins—James Bay

Timmins—James Bay

Timmins—James Bay is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1997. Its population in 2001 was 84,001....

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 Charlie Angus

Charlie Angus

Charles Joseph Angus MP is a Canadian writer, broadcaster, musician, and politician. Angus entered electoral politics in 2004 as the successful New Democratic Party candidate in the Ontario riding of Timmins—James Bay. He was the NDP parliamentary critic for Canadian Heritage from 2004 to 2007,...

 have urged the federal government to clean up the site, which they say is contaminated with asbestos

Asbestos

Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

, PCB

Polychlorinated biphenyl

Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...

s and other toxins. In 2006, Angus stated that there are over 50,000 barrels of toxic material and that PCB levels in the soil are 16,000 times acceptable levels.

Sources

Military needs to clean up toxic bases in northern Ontario, says MP, Canadian Press, Aug 23, 2006.

Ozorak, Paul. Abandoned Military Installations of Canada: Volume I: Ontario. 1991. ISBN 0-969-51271-6.

MID CANADA LINE SECTOR CONTROL STATION 500 Winisk ON