Military radar defence lines of northern North America: an historical geography

Abstract

AbstractNorthern Canada and Alaska from 1945 to 1951 had only a minor military presence and no radar surveillance of airborne threats. Fear of nuclear attack from the USSR led to the installation of numerous radar stations between 1951 and 1958. Alaska gained an inner and an outer arc of radar stations, and Canada the Pinetree Line, Mid-Canada Line, Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line and the little-known Pine-Gap radars of the east coast, from Newfoundland to Baffin Island. The Mid-Canada line closed in 1965 and the Pine-Gap stations were dismantled nine years later. The Pinetree and DEW lines ceased operation in 1988. Alaskan radar facilities were upgraded in the mid- 1980s, and in 1987 and 1988 similar radars were installed at the 14 stations of the North Warning Line, built along the abandoned DEW and Pine-Gap lines from northwestern Alaska to southern Labrador. Very long-range over-the-horizon radars at three locations will be completed by the early 1990s to monitor aircraft in the vicinity of Alaska and the east and west coasts of Canada. The ballistic missile early warning radars installed in the early 1960s in Alaska and Greenland received major improvements in the late 1980s.