This Week ' September-5? 1996: ‘Page M3 [OP STORY CFB Esquimalt seeped in history, By JEFF MORROW Special to This Week stroll through Her Majes ty’s Canadian Ships Dock yard and CFB Esquimalt, = he oldest Canadian Force 2, Base in western Canada, is an exercise in time travel. On one hand, the still operational pump house that pumps out the dry dock is 115 years old. On the other » hand, the Brigadier DeLaLanne building, a teaching facility completed just over a year ago, and ‘C’ Jetty, under construction and soon to be completed, are state of the art facilit- ies. “Many of our buildings are timeless and will hopefully be preserved forev- er. Some of the buildings on the base have been demolished and we will soon have to determine how many _more years we can use some buildings “®refore they, too, are demolished,” ex- | plained Lt. Comm. (Retired) Stirling Ross, CFB Esquimalt’s development engineer. Ross, who is involved in all major base construction projects with a total project cost of at least $1 million, is an expert on base structures, past, pre- » sent and future direction. The first building constructed at what is now CFB Esquimalt was in 1865, when the British Naval Forces | were active in this area. The British | Navy maintained a high profile in the Esquimalt and Victoria vicinity be- tween 1860 and 1906, when Esqui- malt and Halifax, N.S. were very | important ports in the defence of the : British Empire. _ By 1906 Britain had turned over © Esquimalt Dockyard to Canada. In 1910 the Naval Service Act came into being and within a few years the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was formed. When World War I ended, the RCN was able to turn its attention to future needs. It was determined that CFB Esquimalt would require consid- s erable upgrading. 8 “When the Royal Navy constructed | buildings in the early 1900s they did 4 so to conform to the topography of the @ area. As a result, buildings were built # at odd angles, perched on rocks and so forth. They had also been built to the standards of the day, with many of the bricks having come from the United Kingdom. Those bricks had been used as ballast in the ships,” Ross said. Many of the buildings were not functional for modern technology, the engineer explained, but that started to change during World War II. “Several of the buildings on the base are more than 100 years old, Many are more than 90 and most are med Forces keeps sharp eye on the future over 40. During World War II, howev- er, rapid expansion took place. The dockyard took in some of Esquimalt village and the development of infra- structure continued into the early 50s. That period of development con- cluded in 1958-59 with the completion of the Fleet School,” Ross said. Most of the existing RCN destroyers were built during the 1950s and early ’60s and during the past two decades money has been spent by the federal MILITARY IN ACTION — from top, the gun run is an event for which the navy is famous from bygone days. The Provider is a landing pad for a sea King helicopter. In bottom photo, HMCS Provider heads forthe open sea. government on re-equipping ships as opposed to infrastructure. “During the Trudeau years the gov- ernment’s spending priorities focused on social programs. The Department of National Defence (DND) budget was frozen for a number of years and actually decreased when inflation was considered,” Ross said. “During that time, building stan- dards changed, most notably in the technological aspects. Buildings had to be re-wired to accommodate com- puters and air conditioning, for exam- ple. The National Building Code was revised in 1985 to include seismic provisions. That particularly effected Victoria because we are in an earth- quake zone. “This has caused a problem for many of our existing buildings, espe- cially the brick ones. The reinforce- ment of buildings to maintain the appearance for heritage purposes is difficult,” Ross said. In 1988 a development plan for CFB Esquimalt and Dockyard was ap- proved by DND headquarters. The plan mapped out development for 20 years. “It’s a step by step procedure and all projects must be consistent with that plan. Some buildings will take 10 to 12 years to complete from the plan- ning and design stage to completion. The average, however, is about seven years and projects do not go over budget. It is a very thorough process,” Ross explained. There are currently about 1,500 buildings that come under CFB Es- quimalt jurisdiction, including hold- ings in Nanaimo. As of April 1990 a total of 20 projects had been approved for construction start, four of those are already under construction. On the waiting list are: 22 class‘A’ projects and 19 “B’ and ‘C’ projects, with ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ determining prior- ity. Total construction costs for those projects is valued at more than $450 million, Ross said. One of the most impressive con- struction projects currently in pro- gress in the entire Capital Regional District is the construction of ‘C’ Jetty and the Ship Repair Unit (Pacific) at Dockyard. A total of about 27,000 cubic metres of concrete is being used in the entire project. The jetty itself is being constructed to withstand a 23 per cent gravita- tional force during an earthquake. “That's about a force eight in lay- man’s terms. The jetty would be one of the few structures still standing around here after a major earth- quake,” said Ian Martin, construction manager of the project. About 150 people are employed on the construction site at any given time, he added. All building material is locally supplied and including wag- es and incidentals, between $20 and $25 million is being poured into the local economy. Martin also added that about 125 man years of labor per year is being totalled during the life of the project. The end result, he added, was a construction drought at CFB Esqui- malt and HMCS Dockyard for about 25 years. continued from Page 1 ‘But if the base is taking more of a business view of its impact on the local communi- ty. it’s also aware of an old image that still hangs around. “There is still a fear of the military. We suffer from the sSecond World War stereot- aypes, the John Wayne image. “There is just as much a ilitary role in peace-time as ere is in war. “The Canadian Military has roved itself in peace time as ell as war times. We have a Nobel Peace Prize. And how ‘much was made of that?,” he asked. Not much, he says, com- pared to what would have ‘been made of it in the United States. And in that peace-time role Gibson isn’t afraid of incor- porating the environment and the war against drugs as part of the armed forces mandate. In some cases the military has not been asked to help, including the oil spill clean up at Long Beach last year. But the para-military role is definitely something the armed forces is organized to take on. It’s a natural for an organization that exists to protect its country. Already there has been Navy support for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the illicit high sea drug trade. But is there still a need fora military navy now that the Cold War is over? Most em- phatically “Yes” says Gibson. “Are we prepared to not know who is in our water space?” Gibson believes that we must continue to keep check of what is going on if it is only to keep others honest. Peacetime brings with it a change of priorities. The new “threat” only needs identifica- tion for a military application to be found whether that threat is drug runners, envir- - onmental crises or natural disasters. While the Patricians have proved their value keeping the peace, the Navy personnel have shown their compassion with the recent rescue of the Vietnamese refugees. Helping, protecting, prob- lem solving are characteris- tics that are instinctive to the military. They are character- istics that build a strong armed force and a strong com- munity, he says.