CFB Goose Bay - Founding and Construction

Founding and Construction

While the flat and relatively weather-favored area around North West River had for years been under consideration for an airport for the anticipated North Atlantic air routes, it was not until Eric Fry of the Dominion Geodetic Survey investigated the area on 1 July 1941 that the Goose Bay location was selected. Fry beat by three days a similar USAAF survey team under Captain Elliott Roosevelt; the American team had first investigated nearby Epinette Point before joining Fry at the sandy plains that would become Goose Bay. These surveys used amphibian aircraft that landed at the Grenfell mission; from there the teams explored by boat.

Eric Fry recalled: “The airport is actually located on the plateau at the west end of Terrington Basin but it is only five miles inland from the narrows between Goose Bay and Terrington Basin. Having a Gander air base in Newfoundland I suggested we call the Labrador site Goose Bay airport and the suggestion was accepted.”

Prodded by intense pressure from Britain and the United States, the Canadian Air Ministry proceeded with construction at Goose Bay at a record pace, and by November three 7,000 foot gravel runways were ready. The first land aircraft movement was recorded on 9 December 1941. By spring of 1942, the base, now carrying the wartime code-name Alkali, was bursting with air traffic destined for the United Kingdom. In time, the USAAF and the RAF each developed sections of the triangular base for their own use, but the airport remained under overall Canadian control despite its location in Newfoundland and Labrador. The 99-year lease arrangement with Great Britain was not finalized until October 1944.

The story of the base’s founding was evocatively told in a wartime Canadian book by William G. Carr: Checkmate in the North (1944).