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History / Biographical
Suffield, Alberta, is situated approximately 40km northwest of Medicine Hat, Alberta. A few "large explosive events" (100 to 500 tons) were conducted at the Defence Research Board's (DRB) Suffield Experimental Station in the 1960s. On 19 January 1961, Medicine Hat citizens felt tremors in the community as a result of five tons of TNT being detonated at the station. The station director attributed this anomaly to freak atmospheric and weather conditions. At the time the DRB was testing the effects of shock waves on military equipment.
In July 1964, the Suffield Experimental Station detonated 30,600 blocks of TNT - 500 tons - to test the largest, non-nuclear, non-confined, surface blast. Placed in various sections radiating from ground zero to test the effects of the blast were targets, dummy-men, miscellaneous instruments, mines, model ships, nose cones, repirators, vehicles, subterranean chambers, shelters, tunnels, foxholes, and trenches. Several hundred people were expected to observe the blast, including 80 "official observers" and a VIP party of military and research personnel from Canada, the United States, and Britain.
(Sources: "Hellyer Heads VIP List Coming Here for SES Blast," Medicine Hat News, 09 July 1964, 7; Patrick J.Roe, "Blast Area Awaits a Cloudless Day," Medicine Hat News, 16 July 1964, 2; "Suffield Explosion Felt Here," Medicine Hat News, 19 January 1961, 7)
Scope and Content
Photograph shows a detonation at the Suffield Experimental Station.
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