Cartwright, Labrador

1998 - A Visit to Cartwright – Dave Gatehouse

As has been the case with almost every caller to the Pinetree Line web site, Dave Gatehouse and I communicated via E-Mail messages for a few weeks. He then proceeded to the remains of the original radar station which was located at Cartwright. This trip occurred on Sunday, June 14, 1998 and Dave made use of his Epson photo PC camera.

Dave provided the following additional detail: "The remains are located on a hill about three miles east of Cartwright. The road to this site is in poor condition and it is only maintained to allow access to the telephone repeater station which is located in the same location as the original radar station. The fencing around some of the forms was put there about ten years ago to contain some PCB material that was stored there awaiting shipment from Cartwright. This material was not in Cartwright when I arrived in 1990 but the fence has been left to stand as it appears in the photos. There is one photo of a small pond and I assumed that this was used for a water supply. But why would they have creosote piles in this water if they intended to drink it?"

Being a "city-slicker" I then had to look up the word "creosote" in my dictionary. The word is defined as follows: an oily liquid with a penetrating odor, obtained by distilling wood tar, used as a preservative, etc. The dictionary also indicated that creosote was an original meat preservative. The following group of photographs depict the location as it exists today.