Byron Bay, CA 🇨🇦 Closed Airport
CA-0070
-
330 ft
CA-NU
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Loading...GPS Code: Not available
Local Code: Not available
Location: 68.756234° N, -109.088745° E
Continent: NA
Type: Closed Airport
Keywords: YUK CYUK
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Circa 1989-1990
Military obsolescence and strategic realignment. The station was part of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, which was designed to detect Soviet bombers. With the advent of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and satellite surveillance, the DEW Line became technologically outdated. The United States and Canada replaced it with the more modern and largely automated North Warning System (NWS) between 1985 and 1993. The Byron Bay station was an intermediate site (designated CAM-2) and was not incorporated into the new NWS, leading to its decommissioning and abandonment.
The site is abandoned and has undergone extensive environmental remediation. After its closure, the station, like most DEW Line sites, was found to be significantly contaminated with hazardous materials, including Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), lead, asbestos, and petroleum products. Under the management of Canada's Department of National Defence and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, the site was part of a multi-year, multi-million dollar cleanup project. Remediation involved the removal of contaminated soils, demolition of buildings, and proper disposal of all hazardous waste. Today, the site has been returned to a relatively natural state, though the unmaintained gravel airstrip and building foundations remain as visible remnants of its past. It is an unmanned, remote, and inaccessible location with no active use.
The Byron Bay DEW Line Station was a critical component of North American continental air defense during the Cold War. Activated in 1957, it was an Intermediate 'I-Type' station in the Cambridge Bay Sector (Sector CAM), designated CAM-2. Its primary function was to use its AN/FPS-19 doppler radar to fill the low-altitude surveillance gap between the main DEW Line stations at Cambridge Bay (CAM-MAIN) and Lady Franklin Point (CAM-1). The site included a 5,000-foot gravel airstrip that was essential for its construction, resupply, and personnel rotation. It handled military transport aircraft, such as the Douglas C-47 Skytrain and later the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, which were the lifeline for this remote Arctic outpost.
There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the Byron Bay airstrip. The original military purpose for the site is obsolete. Its extremely remote location on Victoria Island in Nunavut, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest community, combined with the high cost of maintaining and operating an airport in the Arctic, makes any civilian or commercial reactivation economically unfeasible. The site has no strategic or economic value that would warrant the significant investment required for its reopening.
I spent a day or two here at the end of a month-long sovereignty patrol. We started at Lupin Mine site, Nunavut (65 degrees 29' 12.61"N, 110 degrees 21'1.33"W) in rubber boats (15-man rubber assault boats, for those with military experience) and made out way north along the Burnside River, up Bathurst Inlet to the top of the Kent Peninsula. From there we were supposed to lash our little boats together and motor across Dease Strait to Byron Bay, where we'd be extracted by C-130. Well, we got socked in by weather on the south side of the crossing point, and started running low on food and fuel. Luckily, the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker HMCCGS Camsel was in the area, lifted us on board by helicoper, and ferried us across to Byron Bay on Victoria Island. The staff at the DEW station there treated us well, and we were warm and dry - a welcome change from our 33 days on the water and tundra. When the Hurc came in to get us, the gravel strip was so soft (it was beginning of August) he couldn't stop for fear of sinking into the muskeg, so we did an engine-running onload (plane rolling at the time), tossed the loadies our gear and packed-up inflatable boats, scrambled in the back while he taxied down the runway to the end, turned around, and took off for home. Looking back, it was quite an adventure. If anyone else out there remembers "OP OPINGAK ODYSEY", drop me a line at [email protected]