meanwhile on the east coast the ships out of halifax were having their own hard going some made their way singly to their destinations along the east coast of baffin island the others rendezvous then headed fly everything to other sites not accessible by water inland from a staging area at edmonton alberta material for some of the central sites where shipped by truck and rail to the river town of waterways where it was put on barges the barges proceeded down river for three hundred miles then because of rapids in the river the entire expedition had to take to the land or  even the new tugboat acquired by barge operations had to make it along this twenty five mile stretch of to the western convoy waiting off icy cape the word came at last that the ice was retreating but still it was touch and go with the ice breakers clearing  some ships dashed to a nearby destinations as the narrow corridor was opened up others pushed through to reach more site spot and for twelve hundred miles further to the east at many sites the ships had to unload in through late august and into september the unloading of the ships proceeded along the full length of the line every item carefully logged in and stored according to plan now to build the material brought by the ships in a race against the approaching winter work was rushed on the permanent living and operating quarters these were prefabricated structures made up of standard units called in the boat or strewn terrain of some eastern sites where there were no gravel deposits the big rock pressures brought in by the sealift were put to work to supply the great quantities of gravel and and needed it was in this area where the terrain was worst that the longest roads had to be built here the stations were to be placed on top of bricks some as high as twenty five hundred feet above the sea without the roads modular units could not be hauled to their foundations finishing the module interiors called for all the craft of the building trade americans and canadians were recruited from every corner of the two countries for the skilled tas module concept solve the problem of providing shelter on the dual line that would be adequate comfortable and safe and could take it from the savage elements at the same time the to began the all important task of installing the radar and radio equipment the wiring of these systems was extremely complex but experience and careful training paid off they were ready now to install the radar control console was being flown up by the air force from a western electric plant in north carolina but some sites had no landing strips for the big cargo plane police helicopter and a shuttle in the one and a half ton mains containing the guns another job for the c one twenty four that winter was getting the big antennas of the search radars to the line from an air force base in delaware the delicate match parts of each antenna were packed in seventeen great es pecially designed in assorted shapes and sizes to fit into to see one twenty four with the installation of the control console the inside electronic work was well underway the stations of the second year eighteen months gone fourteen to go summer in the arctic brings a blue moon wildflowers and temperatures sometimes as high as sixty degrees more often the temperature stayed near freezing but the wind subsided much of the time then it was good weather for erecting the search radar antenna these positions mechanisms would be damaged if a sudden wind storm came up so one started the job had to be finished as fast as possible the crews worked around the clock until the entire assembly was in place and its protective covering erected in that second summer when you see live came and went another transportation epic but already an old story on the do lines ranking officers of the air force on their inspection tour late that summer had good reason to be satisfied with the progress they both the air force and bell system officials kept in frequent first hand touch with work on the line and summer gave way to ball the crews pushed intensively to finish installing the antennas in the aircraft alarm towers and the various permanent radio system when the radio antennas were up the stations of the line would be able to communicate with each other more dependably and the line could communicate with the air defense control centers far to the s permanents completed at most of the sites the airlift was giving full year round service to virtually the entire line some of those new permanent air strips in the rugged eastern terrain were pretty well r december and the second of july in christmas by now many of the sites were fully built project five seven two was proceeding on schedule but indoors many months of work still remain to finish installing and testing the radars on the communications systems and to coordinate them from station to station here in the modules which housed this equipment was the heart of each do line station on the performance of the electronic equipment the success of the whole vast undertaking would stand or but nature in the arctic no longer seems so set for life on the dew line had become pretty civilized your courters what a pleasant room which had quite a few of the comforts of home your ship was one of three that kept the radar and communications systems continually manned you worked through the morning and broke for a good lunch then back to work on off time there were various sports to help you keep fit spring baseball practice started early while you were working up an appetite for chef would be doing something about it after dinner because each man to his own pleasure it might be music perhaps you preferred a rousing game of table tennis no quarter given you can curl up with a good book are there was that other fine intellectual pastime  quarter given here either but always on mainly there was the work of continuous testing the precise calibrating of the electronic equipment so radically new in many respects through that third winter and spring more than a million tests were made to check out the detection and tracking capabilities of the radar live thirty first of the thirty second month since the job began on that day the do a line system was declared officially operational completed on schedule you know about half the time such an undertaking normally would require even in a civilized area and for the canadian and american people would have a distant early warning line guarding them against attack from the north but the building of the new line that's done more than provide a vital warning system it has conquered the far northern wilderness this remote part of the world may now be put to whatever purposes men which do align stations may in time be further equipped taking advantage of new technological advances and meeting new military threats but perhaps the truest oracle role of the dual line will prove to be the opening up for peaceful and productive purposes of a vast new frontier above the arctic circle the untapped resources of which we have a he had barely a glimpse that would be the finest reward of all for the man who built the dew line