Calm Waters: The History of Pinawa

December 30, 2022

Special thanks to the Lac du Bonnet & District Historical Society and the Manitoba Electrical Museum & Education Centre in Winnipeg for the use their photographs.

Pinawa is the only Manitoba town that has existed in two time periods, moved eight kilometres and was supported by two separate industries. Its history is vast, complex and confusing: the name, Pinawa, an Indigenous word meaning “calm or gentle” refers to the river channel, but also to the hydroelectric generating station built on this channel and its company town, and later the nuclear research site and its accompanying town, before progressing to the community known today.

**

During the late 1700s and, through the 1800s, Indigenous peoples, European explorers and fur trading companies travelling along the tumultuous Winnipeg River knew of a safer route that branched off the north side of the Winnipeg River, bypassed the dangerous seven falls and rejoined the Winnipeg River at the north end of “Lake du Bonnet.” That route was the “Pennawa,” a narrow and meandering river, “in some places a mere opening between rocks,” that, near its end, “winds through an immense marshy area covered with wild rice.”

Bishop David Anderson, while travelling from Red River in 1854, left the Winnipeg River at Lac du Bonnet and entered the “Pinawa River” where paddling against the current was easier, though its five portages weren’t any less arduous than those on the main river.

Bishop Anderson describes the first two falls as “pretty, but small,” not more than twenty feet wide and twelve feet high. The third was “a continuous succession of cascades, and altogether a long portage,” while the fourth falls was located in a “beautiful gorge, not above six feet wide, through which the water passed over solid rock.” They portaged their gear and guided their canoe past the falls with some men on long lines and others pushing it from behind. There was one final short portage before they re-entered the Winnipeg River, continuing on to the Islington Mission at White Dog, Ontario.

Geologist and naturalist, Henry Hind, while on an exploring expedition to the Red River Settlement in 1857, camped at the mouth of the “Pennawa” before travelling down the river. While waiting for breakfast in the hour before sunrise, Hind observed that “the almost oppressive silence was broken only by the occasional splash of a pike, the distant howling of a wolf or the subdued roar of the Winnipeg” River carried on a gentle western breeze.

The Wolseley Expedition of 1870 was the last large canoe brigade to travel the Winnipeg River. By 1877, the Canadian Pacific Railway had entered the southeastern portion of the province. It arrived in Whitemouth in 1880 and was completed to Winnipeg three years later, connecting Manitoba to the rest of eastern Canada. Expansion out of Whitemouth into the untouched wilderness was inevitable. Lac du Bonnet was formed in 1898 and the railway came to this small industry community in 1901.

**

The advancement of civilization, and the steady growth of Winnipeg’s population and economy, required the province to think about powering the future. In 1900, recognizing the power potential of the Winnipeg River, there was a race to acquire the land along the river. The federal government’s Department of the Interior scrambled to avoid power site monopolies and placed stipulations on all land along with Winnipeg River: if it wasn’t developed within a certain amount of time, the land reverted back to the government.

In the midst of this chaos, William Mackenzie and Donald Mann, members of the Winnipeg Electric Railway Company (WERC), hired New York’s Pearson Engineering Company to survey the Winnipeg River for potential power sites during the winter of 1901. Hugh L. Cooper, the company’s engineer, rejected the seven falls of Seven Sisters because sections of it were iced over. His chosen location, a few kilometres to the east, was the Pinawa Channel as it still had open water. The recommendation wasn’t based on the Channel’s power potential, rather on Cooper’s belief that a free-flowing channel year-round would offer better control over water movement towards a power site.

In the summer of 1902, the Winnipeg General Power Company was formed to manage the “financing and construction” of the Pinawa hydroelectric generating station, the first to be built in Manitoba. The company’s first decision, based on logic and business, was to not construct a rail bridge over the Winnipeg River or a spur line to Pinawa, as there would be no outbound freight, which meant “this marvel of modern engineering would be built almost solely through horse and human power.” Lac du Bonnet, the closest railhead to the power site, became a shipping hub for supplies and workers. All construction materials, including the 11, 250 kg. generators, were barged across the river at Lac du Bonnet, then transported by teams of horses over corduroy roads.

This $3,000,000 project brought together a vast network of workers over the five year construction period. Winnipeg employment agencies sent recent immigrants directly to Pinawa and Lac du Bonnet became a gathering place for unemployed men hoping for work. Loggers, homesteaders and teamsters from the Lac du Bonnet area, along with men from the Fort Alexander and Brokenhead reserves, cleared bush and transmission line right-of-ways. Hydraulic and electrical engineers from Eastern Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States supervised all aspects of construction. Excavation, dredging and installation involved approximately 1,500 workers of varying skill levels. Steam powered tripod drills, high explosives, horse-drawn scrapers and men with shovels moved 385,000 cubic metres of granite. The same methods were used to built the diversion dam on the Winnipeg River, which maximized the channel’s water flow. All concrete was mixed and poured by hand and all steel transmission towers, from Pinawa to Winnipeg, were put up “by horse and human power.” Once construction was completed in spring 1906, the majority of these jobs disappeared.

**

The WERC’s Pinawa generating station delivered the first low-cost hydroelectric power to Winnipeg on June 9, 1906. The power plant required an operating staff of “fifty to sixty men, including managers,” a small crew of electrical technicians and a variety of general labourers to “tend boilers, keep machinery oiled, clean the plant, cut and blast ice blockages in the river” and do other assorted maintenance tasks. These employees, isolated in the middle of bush and muskeg, lived in the company town or on nearby homesteads. The same gruelling transportation system used during construction remained as Pinawa’s lifeline to Lac du Bonnet, and it imposed their dependence on the company store for dry goods and other essential supplies.

This company town was self-sufficient. Families established a farming operation that kept milk cows and sheep, while a large vegetable garden supplied the store. An array of recreational facilities, including a tennis court, community hall and a curling rink, which at one time was the oldest in the province, kept residents entertained. A school and post office were also established. The town, maintained by a professional gardener, was fully landscaped and had a park-like quality.

**

The Pinawa generating station stopped power production on October 25, 1951. At the time, only four employees remained: an operator, two oilers and one cleaner. The post office and company store also closed, leaving the townsite vacant. The diversion dam on the Winnipeg River was blown to allow the full flow of the river into the Seven Sisters generating station. In 1906, the generating station’s 19,000-horsepower output was too large for just Winnipeg, which had some citizens concerned about whether the excess power could be sold elsewhere. Even with an expansion to 30,000-horsepower, the Pinawa generating station could not compete with the combined 985,000-horsepower of the six hydro generating stations on Winnipeg River in 1951. 

After forty-five years of service, Pinawa’s generators were silent. The WERC repurposed some equipment, except for the clock, which ran faithfully throughout the plant’s operation, but refused to work once removed from the wall. The only explanation was that it missed “the vibration of the machines.”  

Two years later, demolition began. In July 1953, newspapers advertised generators and all other equipment for sale on an “as is, where is basis.” The powerhouse was to be demolished to the “generating floor level.” Some equipment was sold as scrap metal, and anything that could be reused was salvaged. Throughout late 1953 and into 1954, the Winnipeg-based Schwartz Iron and Metal Co. Ltd., dismantled the power plant. They stripped machinery before starting on the building itself.

Alongside this work, the townsite slowly disappeared. The houses built of wood were moved to Great Falls. The brick buildings were offered to anyone who might make use of them, including the provincial government, but they remained on site, empty and unused.

**

In 1958, the military moved into the Pinawa site. Over one weekend in mid-May, 350 Winnipeg soldiers conducted a civil defense exercise “to practice their role in the event of a nuclear attack on Manitoba.” The hypothetical scenario, conducted in the midst of Cold War tensions, was that a nuclear bomb detonated near Great Falls, “devastating a 12 to 14 mile radius.” The soldiers’ training began on the convoy out to Pinawa, dodging imagined radiation patches and other obstacles. The miliary “borrowed a group of abandoned houses” and scattered casualties inside, buried under rubble, for the soldiers to rescue.

By April 1959, the Department of National Defence leased the dam site for five years from the Manitoba government for use “as a training ground for regular and militia soldiers.” Army officials said the area would be used for “wet and dry bridging, assault river crossing, fieldcraft, demolitions and civil defense exercises.”

Throughout 1959, Pinawa hosted a number of demolition training exercises. The steel-reinforced concrete throughout the various structures provided hands-on training in “many different types of demolition work.” Due to the use of high explosives, the public was asked to avoid the area. The first, held the weekend of May 16, involved the 6 Field Engineer Regiment of Winnipeg and several other units in support roles. The exercise was designed to demolish the two side approaches, limiting access to the remaining sections of “spillways, main dam and wing walls” and decreasing the hazards to visitors. 

In September 1959, a four day survival skills exercise involving “all units at Camp Shilo” took place at Pinawa. For authenticity, they used “a small source of radioactive material” and had a monitoring platoon “determine the patterns of radioactive fallout.” The rescuers “marched three miles” to the site before searching for “skillfully made-up simulated casualties buried beneath debris.” The abandoned houses were once again used for this purpose.  

The irony of these training exercises was that a nuclear research site was coming to Manitoba. The location chosen by government officials was ten kilometers away from the site of the Pinawa generating station.

**

Plans for a “nuclear energy research and development centre” were announced October 1, 1959. Canada’s first nuclear research centre was in Chalk River, Ontario. Manitoba was chosen for the expansion of nuclear research in the country because the province lacked “industrial research” sites. The primary research subject at the Manitoba site was to be the development of nuclear power reactors and improving upon current reactor models.

The Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. (AECL) site had a lengthy selection process, as it required “an abundant supply of water and a large area of land not under cultivation,” though the Lac du Bonnet area was an early favorite. By December 1959, engineering surveys along with soil and rock sampling were conducted and plans were made for a new townsite close to the proposed nuclear research site.

By January 1960, after gathering all necessary government approvals, it was announced that the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment (WNRE), named for its proximity to the Whiteshell Forest Reserve, would be located on 11,000 acres in Township 14, Range 11 East, seven kilometers south of Lac du Bonnet on the east side of the Winnipeg River. This land was located within the boundaries of the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet: 8,000 acres were provincial lands which would be transferred to the federal government, the remaining acres were privately owned and were purchased by AECL.

Political scuffles preceded the October 1960 announcement of AECL’s townsite location. The RM of Lac du Bonnet formally requested that the townsite be located in Riverland, while the Premier of Manitoba, Duff Roblin, was accused of not doing enough to ensure the expansion of an existing community, like Lac du Bonnet or Seven Sisters. The new town was to be built 16 kilometres southeast of Lac du Bonnet, on a parcel of crown land bordered by “the north shore of Sylvia Lake in the Whiteshell” on the Winnipeg River and the “south shore of the Pinawa Channel,” chosen for its proximity to the WNRE and for access to “many pleasant lakes and streams.”

The community had a location, but no name. In July 1961, it was revealed that “Manitoba’s first nuclear research development village” would be named Pinawa. Some said it was named after “a channel in the area” while others claimed it was in homage to the “abandoned Winnipeg Electric Company’s hydro site.” Either way, the name had approval from AECL, the National Board of Geographical Names, the Post Office, and the Manitoba Government. The borders of the Whiteshell Forest Reserve (which was redesignated the Whiteshell Provincial Park in 1961) and the RM of Lac du Bonnet were adjusted to allow for the creation of the Local Government District of Pinawa.  

Throughout 1961 construction continued on the WNRE. Contractors, most from Lac du Bonnet, cleared the bush and road right-of-ways from highway 11 to the Winnipeg River and through to the research site and new town. Muskeg bogged down caterpillar tractors, so horse teams hauled construction materials. By June 1962, the bridge over the Winnipeg River was officially opened. It was designed to withstand heavy equipment and shortened the distance to reach the research site, bypassing the Lac du Bonnet-Riverland route which had been used for access to that point.

In May 1963, the reactor building was excavated to a depth of 65 feet prior to concrete reinforcement. The contractors officially turned the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment over to AECL by July. At the same time, the employees began arriving at the townsite, transferring from Chalk River, Ontario.  The first was chief security officer, Ben Banham, and his wife and son. The RCMP came next, followed by LGD of Pinawa personnel. The completed houses, on streets marked with hand-made signs, were islands in the “midst of a turmoil of mud roads and construction equipment.” The community continued, as planned, to gradually expand with people and amenities to become a “completely self-contained community” with schools, “a shopping centre, hospital, town office and fire hall.”

One newspaper reporter in 1963 joked the community would probably have “Manitoba’s highest concentration of brains.” The nuclear physicists, chemists and engineers studied alternatives within nuclear power production using the research reactor, Whiteshell Reactor-1 (WR-1), which became active in November 1965. Over the next decade, the complex was renamed Whiteshell Laboratories though their research mandate remained the same.  WR-1, the “principal source of radioactivity released” at Whiteshell Laboratories, was shut down by May 1985. In 1998, it was announced that Whiteshell Laboratories would be closed. The decommissioning process was expected to take sixty years, allowing the natural decay of radioactivity levels within the WR-1 research reactor. AECL’s facilities will be “systematically retired from use” and a portion of the site would be available for general business use. Full decommissioning is expected to be completed by 2060.

**

In 1980, AECL planned to expand Whiteshell Laboratories with an underground research lab thirteen kilometres east of Lac du Bonnet. The researchers’ goal was to “develop a safe method” for the disposal of nuclear wastes by studying water movement within granite rock. The proposal agitated a group of local residents who protested the project throughout its 5-year construction, worried that the area would soon become a “radioactive garbage dump.”

The Underground Research Laboratories (URL) opened in 1986 on land leased from the RM of Lac du Bonnet. The 20-year lease, 1980-2000, stipulated that the site could not be used for nuclear waste disposal and research officials stated repeatedly that nuclear material would never be used in these experiments. Manitoba Mines Branch monitored all research work to ensure these conditions were met.

URL was the “first research facility in the world to be built below the water table in previously undisturbed granite.” A vertical shaft, 443 m deep, which at the time could fit Toronto’s CN Tower inside, was cut through the granite rock to provide access to the underground testing sites at depths of 240 m and 420 m respectively. Each site had “hundreds of metres of tunnels and multiple test rooms.” URL attracted international scientific visitors and underground tours were available for tourists and locals.

The closure of URL was announced in 2003. The five-year decommissioning process began in 2006, which closed all “underground experiments, tunnels and shafts” and brought “all materials and furnishings” to surface level for disposal. The final step, completed in 2010, was to completely seal the site using “high strength concrete bulkheads sandwiching a dense clay component.” All that remains of the URL is a small fenced enclosure and a few signs, though the research conducted at the underground facility will be used across Canada’s nuclear sites for decades. 

**

The site of the Pinawa generating station, known locally as “Old Pinawa” to differentiate the two locations, had the potential for a tourist attraction, but it was also in danger of disappearing off the map. The brick houses had been demolished in 1969 and the place had fallen into ruin. For many years, Old Pinawa was “forgotten and seldom visited.” Responsibility for the land was shared by Manitoba Hydro, provincial Crown Lands, the Parks Branch and the RM of Lac du Bonnet, though no one was in a hurry to do anything with the site.

Discussions were had throughout the early 1980s. The RM wanted a development plan, but couldn’t seem to agree on one. Crown Lands said they “would not sell the property, but would hold onto it for future Parks Branch development.” The Parks Branch declared it a historic site in 1982, and a concept was developed, but no plans were fully actioned. 

Old Pinawa had become a long-weekend hangout. Complaints flooded in about site vandalism, rowdy parties and unsightly garbage, broken glass and aluminum cans in the Channel. Those responsible for the site decided the “hands-off approach” was best, that conservation officers and police should continue to “confine the party rather than break it up.”

Then, on the May long weekend 1985, an 18 year old man was murdered by a member of the Los Bravos motorcycle gang. RCMP descended upon the area, roadblocks were set up and the man was charged. Everyone took notice. Local residents petitioned the RM for more controls of the Old Pinawa site. The RM sent requests to the Parks Branch that the site be “closed until such time as the area has been established as a supervised park.” Police monitored the area closely, especially during the July long weekend, but people avoided the area.

Changes happened rapidly. The seventy-five acre site, which contains “the dam, the area above and below the dam and the old townsite,” was designated a heritage park. This meant the site was available for day-use only and, under the Parks Land Act, all open liquor was banned. It also became the only heritage park in Manitoba with a “manmade feature as its focal point.”

Redevelopment began in fall 1985 and continued into 1986. A sandblasting company removed all graffiti from the concrete. Parking areas were established, fences and a gate were installed to contain motorists. Picnic tables, barbecues, toilet facilities and limestone walking paths created a family-friendly park atmosphere. Through a joint agreement with AECL, a road connecting PR 313 and PR 211 was built, creating a “day drive loop from Winnipeg.”  

Exactly one year after the tragedy, the Old Pinawa Heritage Park opened to the public. An estimated 450 people visited throughout the May long weekend. The official ribbon cutting ceremony happened on the July long weekend 1986, with government representatives from all across the province, including the Village and RM of Lac du Bonnet. After thirty-five years vacant and neglected, the Pinawa generating station entered the next stage of its life as a provincial heritage park. The Friends of Old Pinawa continue to keep watch over and preserve this historical landmark.

References:

Journals and Books

AECL. Whiteshell Community Reporter vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1993).

_____. Whiteshell Laboratories Decommissioning, no. 1 (October 1999).

_____. Whiteshell Laboratories Decommissioning, no. 2 (June 2000).

Anderson, David. The Net in the Bay or The Journal of a Visit to Moose and Albany (London, UK: Hatchards, Piccadilly, 1873), 12-13.
https://archive.org/details/cihm_01151/mode/2up

Cott, Ann. History and Folklore of the Whiteshell Park North (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1991), 1.
https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A3062154#page/1/mode/2up

Hind, Henry Youle. Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and of the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858 (London, UK: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1860), 117-119.
https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.35699

Lac du Bonnet District Museum Archives. Friends of Old Pinawa primary documents.

_____. Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet Records, 1960. (Meeting Minutes)

Mackenzie, Alexander. Voyages from Montreal through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in 1789 and 1793 (New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1903), xcviii.
https://archive.org/details/voyagesfrommont03mackgoog/mode/2up

Oder, Aileen, ed., Logs and Lines from the Winnipeg River: A History of the Lac du Bonnet Area (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1980), 11.
https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2255122#page/1/mode/2up

Porth, Bob and Craig Mackenzie, eds., Trails to Rails to Highways (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Total Printing and Reproduction Service, 1979), 7.
https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2386195#page/1/mode/2up

Saunders, Chris and Louise Daymond. “Pinawa: Fifty Years of Family, Friends and Memories.” (Columbia, SC, 2017), 166-68.

Newspaper Articles

“Great Falls news.” Springfield Leader (Lac du Bonnet, MB), November 22, 1949.

“High River Averts Danger of Winter Power Shortage.” Winnipeg Free Press, November 3, 1951.

Leith, Mrs. H. “After many years, Seven Sisters Falls…” Springfield Leader, September 30, 1952.

“Carter Hands WEC to Province.” Winnipeg Free Press, January 27, 1953.  

“For Sale, Sale of Used Powerhouse Apparatus…” Winnipeg Free Press, July 16, 1953.

Green, Doug. “Pioneer Power Plant to Disappear.” Winnipeg Tribune, May 25, 1954.

“Manitoba’s First Power Plant Being Demolished.” Winnipeg Free Press, May 29, 1954.

Nussey, Wilf. “Atom Raid Test Had an Air of Reality.” Winnipeg Tribune, May 12, 1958.

“Army Leases Pinawa Site.” Winnipeg Free Press, April 8, 1959. 

“Militia Engineers to Wreck Pinawa Dam.” Winnipeg Free Press, May 16, 1959.

Cleverley, Fred. “Army Trains Demolition Squads on Old Pinawa Dam.” Winnipeg Free Press, September 8, 1959.

“Shilo Soldiers Learn Survival.” Brandon Sun (Brandon, MB), September 12, 1959.

“Huge Atomic Research Plant Set for Manitoba.” Winnipeg Free Press, October 1, 1959.

“Atom Site Land Deals Underway.” Winnipeg Free Press, November 13, 1959.

“Lac du Bonnet Favoured.” Winnipeg Tribune, December 9, 1959.

“A Town Planned for 1,000 Families.” Winnipeg Tribune, December 16, 1959.

“Research Center Official.” Springfield Leader, January 19, 1960.

“A-Site Plans Set.” Winnipeg Free Press, January 19, 1960.

“Atom Plant Design Contract Given to Winnipeg Firm.” Winnipeg Free Press, August 24, 1960.

“Construction starts on research site.” Springfield Leader, August 30, 1960.

“Pictured above is a cross section…” Springfield Leader, September 6, 1960.

Dafoe, John. “’Judge’ Churchill gives nod to Roblin.” Winnipeg Free Press, September 26, 1960.

“Townsite Announced.” Springfield Leader, October 18, 1960.

Mackie, Victor. “Pinpoint Site of MB Atom Village.” Winnipeg Free Press, October 18, 1960.

“Pinawa Lives on at New Site.” Winnipeg Free Press, July 26, 1961.

“All Name Needs is the Town.” Winnipeg Tribune, July 26, 1961.

“Whiteshell Nuclear Centre Big Boost to Economy.” Winnipeg Free Press, April 10, 1962.

“N-Station Bridge Will be Opened in Ceremony Friday.” Winnipeg Free Press, June 1, 1962.

Melnyk, Steve. “Bridge to Nuclear Station Opened.” Winnipeg Tribune, June 9, 1962.

“Townsite shows rapid progress.”  Springfield Leader, July 16, 1963.

Dafoe, John. “Meet Pinawa; Population 3.” Winnipeg Free Press, July 20, 1963.

Balness, Betty. “Tourism Development forum held here.” The Leader (Lac du Bonnet, MB), May 20, 1980.

“Chamber will not support CCC position.” The Leader, May 20, 1980.

“RM Minutes.” The Leader, April 21, 1981.

“Rowdy parties cited.” Winnipeg Free Press, August 4, 1981.

Foster, David. “The Energy Column: The Underground Research Laboratory.” The Leader, March 23, 1982.

“Advertisement: We’d like your views.” The Leader, April 27, 1982.

“RM could collect $100,000 in annual grants.” The Leader, April 27, 1982.

“URL construction now underway.” The Leader, March 29, 1983.

Editorial. “Let’s save the dam site.” The Leader, May 31, 1983.

Ostash, Noreen. “Old Pinawa Dam may soon be designated as historic site.” The Leader, June 28, 1983.

_____. “Old Pinawa’s fate discussed at open meeting.” The Leader, July 19, 1983.

_____. “50 take part in first clean up bee at Old Pinawa.” The Leader, August 9, 1983.

“Open House ’83 Celebrates WRNE’s 20^th birthday.” The Leader, September 6, 1983.

“Mulroney asked to reject underground nuclear sites.” Winnipeg Free Press, November 24, 1984.

Ostash, Noreen. “Pine Falls man murdered at Old Pinawa on weekend.” The Leader, May 21, 1985.

_____. “Residents petition for more control over Old Pinawa.” The Leader, June 25, 1985.

“Bikers barred at festival.” Winnipeg Free Press, June 29, 1985.

“Police Report.” The Leader, July 2, 1985.

“RM council.” The Leader, July 2, 1985.

Ostash, Noreen. “Old Pinawa gets a face lift.” The Leader, December 17, 1985.

_____. “Old Pinawa re-opens.” The Leader, May 13, 1986.

“Police Report.” The Leader, May 20, 1986.

Ostash, Noreen. “Pinawa Dam Heritage Park opened officially.” The Leader, July 2, 1986.

_____. “Changes have etched the face of Lac du Bonnet.” Village of Lac du Bonnet celebrates 40^th birthday supplement to the Lac du Bonnet Leader, September 1988.

“Pinawa Dam Heritage Park.” Village of Lac du Bonnet celebrates 40^th birthday supplement to the Lac du Bonnet Leader, September 1988.

Campbell, Donald. “Review panel tours the Hole.” Winnipeg Free Press, May 30, 1990.

Connell, Valerie G. “URL closure stuns community.” Lac du Bonnet Leader, February 24, 2003.

Redekop, Bill. “Closing of $40-M lab shocks Pinawa area.” Winnipeg Free Press, May 18, 2003.

“Closure ends an era.” Lac du Bonnet Leader, January 6, 2011.

Redekop, Bill. “Entombing Whiteshell reactor called safe option.” Winnipeg Free Press, July 14, 2017.

Photographs and Maps

AECL. “Aerial view, Whiteshell Laboratories.” In: Whiteshell Community Reporter vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1993).

____. “Aerial view, Underground Research Laboratory.” In: Whiteshell Community Reporter vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1993).

Lac du Bonnet District Museum Archives. “Pinawa early construction.” Photograph. From Friends of Old Pinawa.  

____. “Pinawa 1936.” Photograph. From Tim McCoy.

____. “Pinawa New Town 1964.” Photograph. From Friends of Old Pinawa.

Lac du Bonnet Leader newspaper advertisement. “We’d like your views.” In: The Leader, April 27, 1982.

Manitoba Department of Tourism, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. “The Whiteshell Guide.” Map. 1968.

Manitoba Electrical Museum & Education Centre Collection. “[General View Downstream from site of generating station].” Photograph. May 14, 1903. Accession number 17152.

____. “[View of contractor’s camp and work area].” Photograph. 1903. Accession number 15168.

____. “[Townsite].” Photograph. 1910. Accession number 15005.

Manitoba Hydro. “Generating Station and Townsite, circa 1910s.” In: Manitoba Hydro. “A History of Electric Power in Manitoba.” 11. https://www.hydro.mb.ca/corporate/history/history_of_electric_power_book.pdf

Manitoba Travel and Publicity Bureau, Department of Mines and Natural Resources. “Manitoba’s Eastern Adventure Land: Whiteshell Provincial Park.” Map. 1952.