Military officials in the Federal Warning Centre had the critical responsibility of monitoring the military and supply situation throughout Canada using information from NORAD’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.

NORAD, which stands for North America Air Defense Command, is a joint organization of Canada and the United States, which provides aerospace warning of incoming attacks. In 1957, the Russians successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time, which could reach any part of the world. NORAD was created in 1958 and incorporated three successive lines of radar monitoring known as the Pine Tree Line, Mid-Canada Line, and the Distant Early Warning System line or DEW Line. In 1961, the Americans set up a fourth line known as the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.

This room once held a unique piece of technology called an “iconorama”, an early electronic map that plotted vehicle movement across North America in real time. Wayne Marshall, a signaller in the Bunker, describes the process of sighting Russian movements through North American airspace:

“…sometimes these flash messages came in very very rapid succession, they might be air, they might be submarines, and sometimes a lot of it was done just to test us to see if we could deal with it. It was done by the Russians on purpose, to agitate us. […] They might sight Russian aircraft that’d intruded into our space. We called them bears. A Russian bear was…loaded with electronic equipment, just loaded. They’re watching us, and we’re watching them. That’s the Cold War. Watching, all the time.”

Updates and situation reports received next door in the Comms Room were plotted out on the iconorama. Officials here would have briefed the War Cabinet on the situation, advising the prime minister and the emergency cabinet.

Emergency preparedness drills were conducted at the Bunker for many of its operational years.