Up to date information on the comings and goings in The Diefenbunker: Canada's Cold War Museum. Also a behind the scenes look at how the museum operates and how the museum team is working after our capacity expansion project to which grew our capacity from 60 to 420 in July 2010!

New Fire Pump!

Posted by Eric Espig On 14:08


As we are approaching the completion of the building capacity project we are seeing a lot of things changing very quickly.
February saw the removal of the old equipment in the Fire Pump Room, and the installation of the new.
The new Fire pump controller incorporates a transfer switch allowing the generator to power the fire pump during a power failure and is a fraction the size of the old controller.
Some of the old piping in the pump room was tested and reused other sections were added to the museum collection.
The new Pump is 60 Horse Power and capable of pumping 500 US Gallons/ min at 130 PSI.

Commissioning of the new equipment is scheduled for early April.


Brad Heath
Building Systems Manager




Get Lost! June 28th, 2010!

Posted by Eric Espig On 10:27


Bunker Photography Series - Michael Steinhauer

Posted by Eric Espig On 11:34

A second sample of the Bunker Photography Series of photos. Michael Steinhauer is well known in the Ottawa Museum community, as the Director of the Bytown Museum, Michael has been integral to widening the scope of the Bytown Museum mandate to include recent history of downtown, centretown and lowertown Ottawa. This change has facilitated the creation of new connections between persons presently living in those communities to their own pasts and the past of the neighbourhoods they reside in. Expanding the mandate of the museum has also led to more modern and innovative interpretation of the storied past of Bytown (Ottawa) using current technological innovations and trends to reach out to visitors. This is exemplifed in the interactive  "Capital Neighbourhoods" virtual exhibit currently on display on the VMC (Virtual Museum of Canada.) 

Michael's photos involve less often photographed aspects of the Diefenbunker and when those aspects are taken out of the context of the building, they provide interesting and unique stories of their own.



 

This series features the creative output of local professional photographers who have been invited to the bunker to attempt to visually capture the building, its contents and its atmosphere. Photographers are giving special permission to freely roam the Bunker and to choose how to interpret what they see. The end result of this program will yield the first exhibition and publication of artistic Bunker photography.