Former CAM-F DEW Line Radar Site

 closed / former military, early warning radar

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Built in 1956 as an "I" or Intermediate Radar site in the CAM Sector of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, the CAM-F or Scarpa Lake site was a short-range "gap filler" radar site which went into operation in 1957. The Easternmost station in the CAM Sector, the site used its twin AN/FPS-23 Doppler radars to bolster the low-altitude coverage of the Long Range Radar sites at FOX-Main/Hall Beach and CAM-5/Mackar Inlet, and reported to the Sector Control station at CAM-MAIN, Cambridge Bay.

Manned year-round by a four to five man crew and accessible only by air, the isolated station was equipped with a short airstrip which could accommodate the 'lateral' freight and passenger DC-3 from both CAM-MAIN and FOX-MAIN, though the station was also reachable by helicopter from Hall Beach during periods of favorable weather. Remaining in operation through the Summer of 1963, the site along with the rest of the "I" sites fell victim to advancing technology and were rendered redundant by improvements to the radar coverage at the Long Range Sites. Idled, stripped of reusable materials and essentially abandoned in the Fall of 1963, the site remained untouched for over forty years before being demolished and environmentally remediated as part of a territory-wide clean up effort at former DEW Line sites. Today only the site airfield remains as an indication of the CAM-F site, and it has not been maintained since the completion of the site remediation project.

lswilson.dewlineadventures.com/camf.htm