Top-Secret Bunker If Russia’s threats of nuclear attacks during its Ukraine invasion bring back memories of the Cubanmissile crisis, the Diefenbunker in Carp, west of Ottawa, is a must-see. Top-secret for years, the four-storey bunker was named after Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who commissioned it in 1959 to house key government and military officials in the event of a nuclear attack on Canada. Built to withstand a five-megaton nuclear blast from 1.8 kilometres away, the steel-and-concrete structure is Canada’s strongest building. Its 358 rooms could safely shelter 535 people with enough food for 30 days. Our eyes widened during a guided tour of the underground mini-city, as we viewed Geiger counters, decontamination rooms, a hospital, cafeteria, dental clinic, CBC radio studio, Bank of Canada vault, electronic equipment, meeting rooms and bedrooms, including one for the prime minister. Civil defence publications, ColdWar archives and posters fill the extensive library. The 100,000-square-foot nuclear bomb shelter operated until 1994, when it became a National Historic Site. The museum opened in 1998. diefenbunker.ca Ice Age Mammals We time travelled much further back in history at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse. Near the end of the ice age 30,000 to 16,000 years ago, lowered sea levels created a land bridge over the Bering Strait, allowing people and animals to migrate from Siberia to the Yukon – an area called Beringia. Wall murals, skeletons and replicas portray landscapes and the mix of familiar (caribou, muskox and grizzly bears) and now-extinct animals that roamed Beringia’s treeless plains. Scimitar cats occupied the Yukon more than 20,000 years ago. Amodel of the formidable 200-kilogram feline predator depicts its oversized canine teeth. Craning our necks, we viewed the skull of a plaster cast of a 12,000-year-old woolly mammoth. The four-metre-high adults had curved tusks that grew up to 3.5 metres long and weighed up to 100 kilograms each. We examined a woolly mammoth tusk unearthed in the Dawson gold fields. By studying its growth rings, scientists determined that it was about 25,000 years old. beringia.com CSANews | SUMMER 2022 | 15 Travel
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