By Grant Warkentin
The Canadian Coast Guard recently helped install a new building on top of a mountain near the remote coastal community of Klemtu, part of improvements to its network of services for mariners.
This summer, the Coast Guard installed a new equipment building, communications tower, and helipad on Swindle Island to “replace aging infrastructure and support marine safety for years to come,” according a social media post from June.
It’ss part of the Coast Guard’s network of remote mountaintop sites that provide radio communication and radar services for mariners on the Central Coast. The sites typically have an aluminum building, communications tower, and helipad at each site. Because they are remote, they are self-powered with diesel engines. The coast guard does annual refuelling trips and bi-annual preventative maintenance trips to the sites.
This week the Coast Guard shared a video of the equipment building being lifted by a Chinook helicopter from the dock to the mountaintop, where it was secured in place.
The building was transported by truck to the dock at the Coast Guard’s base in Victoria, then loaded on to a barge for the long trip north to Swindle Island. The rest of its journey to the mountaintop can be seen in the video embedded above.
“Suspended from the helicopter, both sections were carefully guided into position by our skilled crews, who took the winds and challenging conditions into account,” says the coast guard’s social media post this week. “These upgrades will help ensure the continued safety and reliability of this important site along one of Canada’s busiest marine corridors, today and into the future.”
The Canadian Coast Guard maintains three sites on the Central Coast, and four on the North Coast.
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