The nuclear heritage group continues to welcome a steam of artifacts to its collection. The artifacts received vary widely in size and shape and come from many sources. One of the recent donations came from the family of Roger Jarvis who donated a lapel pin marking his 32 years of service with AECL when he retired in 1989. It joins several other long-service pins in the Society collection. Starting in the early 1990s, AECL began to award employees with 10 mm by 13 mm golden lapel pins marking every five years of service starting at 20 years. These pins incorporated semi-precious gemstones leading to a diamond for thirty years of service. An additional diamond was added for each five years after that. The Society has acquired the 20 and 25-year pins but would welcome donations of the 30, 35 (and possibly 40-year?) pins to complete its collection. These are safely stored in our facility at 51 Poplar Street in Deep River.
By contrast as to size, the Society recently received via Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and the Canada Science and Technology Museum (CSTM) in Ottawa an exquisite model of an Advanced CANDU-700 Reactor (ACR). The model was built at Sheridan Park around 2002 and had been used for marketing purposes in the USA. It had been exhibited at Sheridan Park for a period, was later transferred to the CSTM for exhibition and has now made its way to Deep River.
The ACR model is housed in a plexiglass case that measures 127 cm by 137 cm at the base and is 198 cm tall (50” by 54” by 78”). This size has created a problem since the widest doors at the storage facility are only 86 cm (34”) wide and the Society has had to resort to commercial storage space to house the model until a more permanent home for the Society holdings can be found. Unfortunately, until that time our visitors will have to remain content with photos of the model.
The Society is establishing a fund-raising committee to begin work on acquiring a permanent home in the near future. In addition to donations of artifacts, we welcome your ideas on siting, prospects for sharing a facility with other groups, monetary donations and offers to assist with this effort, which we hope will provide Deep River with an outstanding tourist attraction and make Deep River more visibly be the “Home of Canada’s Nuclear Pioneers” that it advertises on its signs. To volunteer contact Michael Stephens (613-584-9210, Jim Ungrin (613-584-3055) or any other member of the Society.
