Some 2,000 government and private bunkers in back yards or basements were built across Canada at the onset of the Cold War, far fewer than in the United States or Europe, estimates Andrew Burtch, a Cold War historian at the Canadian War Museum.
"The Cold War brought with it the spectre of nuclear annihilation. And so governments around the world had to think about the best ways in which to prepare for a nuclear attack and how to coordinate the response to it after the fact," he recounted.
"The solution that many countries came to," he said, "was some form of underground (facility) to protect against the main effects of the nuclear bomb, be it the blast, radiation or heat."
Canada planned to deal with radioactive fallout, but was less concerned about threats of direct strikes on its cities.
"The idea was that the Russians would not waste their bombs or missiles on Canada but rather target them at the United States," Burtch explained.
There were several scares between 1947 and 1991. "Nuclear weapons were everywhere during the Cold War, and the threat to use those weapons was periodic and tended to come during periods of high tension," he said.
"Now we find ourself back in the position where we were," he lamented. "So it's quite a disconcerting time."
