RCAF Air Traffic Control
Macdonald, Manitoba

I originally learned about RCAF Station Macdonald by looking through some Topo Maps but it wasn't until a friend of mine came to town that I decided to actually drive the hour and a half trip west of Winnipeg to see what remained. After taking a wrong turn and getting "lost" we found the remains of the airfield but to our dismay most of it had been demolished and all that remained was now part of a large Hutterite Colony. We drove around the farm to see what remained and there were two buildings that interested us the most, an old school with most of its windows shattered and a large decaying hanger that was now being used for a barn of sorts.

Not wanting to disrespect the Hutterites we drove up, got out and asked the first person whom we saw if it would okay for us to take pictures of the old airfield. His response was to "Give er good" and with that surprising response we drove off to the old hanger.

The pictures of the hanger cannot do justice of how amazing this hanger truly was. Its decaying roof and walls along with the semi-rusted doors gave it a characteristic that I had never seen before. While taking pictures of the exterior about four people in their pickup trucks came and asked us why we were taking pictures and upon hearing our response told us to go to Martin (whom we never did find) as he had historical photo's of this place. Walking through the hanger was something else as I had never walked in a building that housed cows, was used as a hockey rink and was crumbling all at the same time.

After taking pictures we drove off towards the school and on the way found an old man-hole that was partially off so seizing the opportunity, we lifted it up. Unfortunately it led to nothing significant and a large amount of crap so we continued on our way down an unused road and in the process, scratched the hell out of my car roof.

Access to the school was easy and the building was essentially laid out in a U shape with three main hallways making the basic shape with the rooms along one side of that hallway. The school was in reasonably good shape save for maybe three small sections where the roof and floors were completely rotted through and for some odd fire damage in two rooms. Most of the school was void of its original content save for some old world maps and art work and the Hutterites were now using the school for storage mainly in the north wing of the school while leaving most of the south wing vacant. As we continued to take pictures of the building another Hutterite walked in and asked me why we were here. After explaining our situation for the tenth time he began to explain that the building was a school. Up until that point we had thought that the building might have served as a barrack block. He began to go into the history of the station and all the buildings that were moved and torched upon reviving the station as a farm. Seeing that he had been talking with me for at least three minutes he wished us a good day and left to do some more jobs. There wasn't much else on the station that looked decayed or vacant so we decided to go into Portage and have lunch.