Campbell River BC on Vancouver island is a small tight knit community. however as many people do not know is that on April 5th 1958 one of the largest non nuclear blasts occurred right here at a place named Ripple Rock
Ripple rock had been first charted in the 1860's, it had been a serious navigational hazard in the shipping channel for a long time. the first vessel claimed officially by the rocks was the paddle steamer Saranac in 1875.
plans had been on the books as early as 1931 to remove the rock, however it wasn't until 1945 that serious planning commenced.
the final planned called for the detonation of 1270 metric tons of explosive to be used, a shaft and two tunnels were constructed under the channel and up into the ripple rock itself, after 3 years of work and over 2.5 million dollars the time had come.
Broadcast live across Canada by the CBC the explosion was detonated at 9:31 AM local time. the blast completely destroyed the rock with over 635000 metric tons of material displaced. the explosion was used by the British nuclear arms research department to measure similar effects of this blast compared to a nuclear detonation.
the blast remains one of the largest non nuclear blasts on record.
since then the channel has been safe passage to traffic and is a vital sea link to both BC and Alaska.
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