The Diefenbunker

When one thinks of Canada, they rarely think of nuclear annihilation, but the Canucks were ready for one.

The Diefenbunker was built in the late 50s to protect the Canadian Government from nuclear attack and nicknamed after John Diefenbaker who was the Prime Minister at the time. It was part of a number of bunkers and locations to be used during a nuclear attack, and was officially known as the “Central Emergency Government Headquarters”. The Diefenbunker was in operation for 33 years as communications station CFS Carp before it was turned into a museum in 1998, and opened to the public. It is also a National Historic Site of Canada.

In addition to being a museum, the Diefenbunker has also been used as a movie set in several movies including “Sum of All Fears”, “Zygote” and most recently “Fatman.” A highlight among the exhibitions is “Lost Nuke: The World’s First Broken Arrow” which is the story of the first ‘lost’ nuclear weapon, featuring artifacts from the site of the infamous plane crash.

The original property stretched down to the Carp River. Two buildings, originally part of CFS Carp, that are still used today are the Mess Hall and maintenance building. Respectively they are now used as a municipal community hall and public library. The bases’ old baseball diamond is still visible, although now it is used as a cow paddock.