Memories of Ontario’s Great Blackout of August 14, 2003 - Russ Baird

Cherry-picking is an accusation that someone gets the best and easiest assignments, leaving the tough work for the less privileged staff members. In this true story, the survivors got to pick the cherries, and no one was marginalized.

I served in the Canadian reserves 1959-2009, often as a “contracted officer” on taskings of a few weeks to over two years. In 1980 I won a “cherry”, command of Exercise Summer Viking, leading to over two years of amazing full time employment at army HQ. When I was a Ranger from 1990 to 1992, my summer employment was commanding the “student militia” armoured training at Blackdown (Borden) and Meaford.

On August 14, 2003, Ontario suffered an electrical blackout of record proportions.  That was 20 years ago. The 13th  would have been my dad's 88th birthday except that we had buried him for his 65th, in 1980. As a Canadian army (contracted reservist) officer, I was brought down from commanding that Arctic exercise. I saluted as the casket was lowered, topped by my dad’s five WW2 North Nova Scotia Highlanders (“The Patsies of the Ninth” brigade) medals, borrowed from Hal Liddell.  He had the same medals, but Cpl Baird’s, (Company Clerk of Support Company and recorder for the trial of SS MGen Kurt Mayer) were inaccessible, and Hal’s were “mounted”. This made it easy for me to scoop them back for Hal as the casket was lowered, before dirt was tossed, in the vets section of the North York cemetery. 

23 years later, on August 13, 2003, 2500 soldiers, cadets, and civilians who formed the annual Blackdown Army Cadet Camp at the west end of CFB Borden, packed up to go home. Most Ontario army cadets were there, as well as cadets of all services Canada-wide who were there for specialist training, such as drumming and bagpipes in “H” (Highland) Company, the Pipes and Drums who woke us every morning with Reveille. Next day, Aug 14th, the camp was "exhausted" as the buses rolled out, taking the cadets and many of the 500 staff personnel, to places from Cornwall and Amherstburg to Kapuskasing and the Soo country. While they were driving, the power went out.

A few “stragglers” had been left behind, including highlanders, (cadet bandsmen from across Canada, whom we would take in vans and staff cars to airports for flights home as far away as Nanaimo  and Cape Breton}. Others included four cadets in hospital and a couple of soldiers in the stockade. Not only was the camp “exhausted” (ie “emptied”) but so were we, from living in a boot camp  for over 8 weeks, a camp that enforced “lights out” and “no sex” upon penalty of being RTUd, which is to say “fired and sent home”. Two majors who were married to each other were caught, (“male visiting female lines”), and sent home. We jogged every Reveille, and were marched to all meals. Smoking area? “Climb down into that pit to poison yourself in our Black Hole of Calcutta”. What a relief that it was over. The mosquitos and poison ivy stayed, while the skunks, porcupines, wild dogs, and foxes wondered where everyone had gone.

I was more or less in charge of the "rear guard", the "left behind". Clerks, quartermaster sergeants, administrative officers, and drivers. I had one of the longest contracts, as admin officer of Headquarters Company, a sort of assistant adjutant of the camp, obliged to stay until the bitter end, processing course and personnel assessments and completing the "after action reports".

But there was no electricity.  Some of those buses would run out of gas, and stations could not pump the refills. Only one phone had power. The kitchens could not function. We couldn’t use the washrooms, so out came the mortar-style urinals, and the reservists were put on FOA (field operating allowance). A nice plum, (or cherry if one prefers to call it that). The regular force members had been on FOA for their whole tasking at Blackdown.

Being on CFB Borden, the major trades training camp of the army, we had resources available. Gasoline tankers could go out and refill buses. Borden is also an air base, and flights were possible because we could replace the magic of electricity with that of military logistics. Yes, we could be fed. "Home sweet tent" did not require electricity, but the rest of the camp was blacked out. We slept in tents by night, and the tumbleweeds blew by day in that desert.

Suddenly, we had barbecues, and steaks to sizzle. We had vans and swimming trunks to head off for Wasaga Beach. With generators, we could show movies on big screens. There were water trucks and portable showers. We brought a big screen to the dunes, eating the army’s steaks, and produce from roadside markets, because no stores were open. Fresh cherries and corn on the cob were de rigueur. 

And cash. The Base Finance Officer issued me hundreds of dollars for the morale, welfare and recreation of the rear party.

Cash for buying the cherries for our picnics and the beer for our bellies. The QM vehicle had a canoe and  supplies for fishing, shooting, archery and games. Badminton and volleyball can be played with nets strung between two vehicles and/or trees. The medic had some necessaries, and the chef could turn flora and fauna into delicacies.  Mm mm, turtle soup. I have asked fellow Ranger Duncan Nyberg if he recalls any snake-eaters having their way with the chef. I remember buying bait for fishing. We had First Nations members, but had no visits from game wardens about our activities, which were all fully approved. (Except, possibly, some of the songs we sang at the bonfire – I did Johnny Cash and Irish ballads – and led some of the “backroom ballads” on the Burl Ives record of that name), and then, the couples going snake-hunting or star-gazing over the next dune. Almost half of us were female clerks.)

The 40, dwindling to 14, of us who were there till the end, had the life of Riley for over a week. We went to different parks, lakes or beaches and had a bonfire every night, the convoy getting a little smaller each day. We were welcomed everywhere. Mayors thanked the Base Commander for our “anti-looting” presence. We shared a beer with cops who stopped by. People waved to us throughout Huronia, feeling less abandoned by the government as they coped with isolation.

Even the person needed to man the camp phone could come along, putting the phone on remote answering. "Oh really, Cadet Corporal Jones, you got home, and your foster parents had moved away? I'll call the Nanaimo Children's Aid for you. Not to worry." That call was taken at a dune on the relayed phone.

Life was just a bowl of cherries, in the Great Blackout, now recalled on its 20th anniversary, August 14th, 2023.

Russ Baird, CD

Member of the Regimental Family