CFB Cold Lake - History

History

Construction of what would become known as RCAF Station Cold Lake began in 1952 at the height of the Cold War after the site in Alberta's "Lakeland District" was chosen by the Royal Canadian Air Force for the country's premier air weapons training base. The chosen location was near the former Town of Grand Centre (now part of the City of Cold Lake), and was based on factors such as low population density, accessibility, weather, suitable terrain, and available land for air weapons training.

Personnel arrived at Cold Lake on March 31, 1954 with operations at RCAF Station Cold Lake beginning that day. The following year, the federal government signed an agreement with the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta for use of a tract of land measuring 180 km by 65 km covering an area of 11,700 square kilometres. This became known as the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR) and is the raison d'être for the location of the base.

CLAWR is the northern equivalent to the United States Air Force's Nellis Air Force Range and provides a different training environment with heavy boreal forest and numerous lakes more closely resembling European terrain. It hosts over 640 actual targets and 100 realistic target complexes, including 7 simulated aerodromes with runways, tarmac, aircraft, dispersal areas and buildings, as well as mechanized military equipment such as tanks, simulated radar and missile launching sites, mock industrial sites, and command and control centres.

Operations in the 1950s and early 1960s centered around training crews destined for the CF100 Canuck all weather interceptor which was in operational use in both Canada and Europe. From 1962, the arrival of the CF104 Starfighter resulted in a change of task, to the training pilots for Canada's NATO commitment in West Germany, which continued up until the arrival of the CF18 Hornet in 1982. From then until today, the base is the training focal point for this aircraft, in addition to operational squadrons being located here.

On February 1, 1968 the RCAF merged with the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Forces. RCAF Station Cold Lake saw its name changed to CFB Cold Lake and became the responsibility of Air Defence Command. ADC and several other CF commands transformed in 1975 to become Air Command (AIRCOM).

During the 1980s, CFB Cold Lake was thrust into the international media spotlight when CLAWR was used as the target for testing of the newly-developed AGM-86 air launched cruise missiles by the USAF. These missiles were launched from strategic bombers over the Beaufort Sea and travelled down the Mackenzie River valley, closely following the terrain at elevations of several metres above ground level. The tests caused significant controversy among peace activists and local First Nations on the projected flight paths since the new untested weapons were considered a destabilizing force in the international arms race, potentially contributing to instability worldwide. The Federal Court of Canada ruled in favour of allowing the tests to proceed in 1983 and the Canada–United States Test and Evaluation Program or CANUSTEP agreement was subsequently signed between both nations, allowing for the cruise missile tests to use Canadian airspace in the Northwest Territories and Alberta en route to CLAWR.

In 1990 18 sounding rockets were launched.

In 2000/2001, several CFB Cold Lake - 4 Wing buildings were recognized as Federal Heritage buildings on the Register of the Government of Canada Heritage Buildings: Hangars 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and the Senior NCO's Building B-30.

In 2007 it was the setting for Jetstream, a TV series depicting eight pilots training under the 410 Tactical Fighter Training Squadron to fly a CF-18.