Experimental Station Suffield The military research facility located north of Suffield , Alberta , operated under the name of the Experimental Station Suffield ( or the Field Experimental Station ) from its inception into 1941 to its renaming to the Suffield Experimental Station in 1950 . History . When France fell to the Axis Powers in 1940 , the British lost access to the joint British / French experimental station located in the Sahara at Beni Ounif , two hundred miles south of Oran . Following the lost of the Algerian experimental station , the Canadian Government indicated that it was willing to provide an alternative location . In October 1940 , the Superintendent of Experiments at Porton Down , England , Mr . E . Ll . Davies , arrived in Canada to discuss the issue with Lt . Colonel Morrison and Dr . Otto Maass . Of the sites considered ; Tracadie NB , Northern Quebec , Northern Ontario , Brandon , Manitoba , and Maple Creek , Saskatchewan ; Suffield , Alberta was selected . The area , which was given the name the Suffield Block , contained one hundred and twenty - five farms plus additional lands that were mostly owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Hudson ' s Bay Company . A small nucleus of British scientists arrived at the experimental station in the spring of 1941 . The Experimental Station Suffield , under the administration of the Canadian Army , commenced operations on June 11 , 1941 as a joint British / Canadian biological and chemical defence facility . The name appears on several reports from the period and was most likely following a British naming convention . By the end of the Second World War , the station employed 584 personnel trained in chemistry , physics , meteorology , mathematics , pharmacology , pathology , bacteriology , physiology , entomology , veterinary science , mechanical and chemical engineering . In 1946 , the station was placed completely in the hands the Canadian Army when the British withdrew their support . The responsibility for administrating the station , including the Suffield Block , was transferred to the Defence Research Board on April 30 , 1947 by Order in Council PC 101 / 1727 . In August 1950 , the station was renamed to the Suffield Experimental Station ( SES ) . A note on the Defence Research Board : Based on the recommendations of Dr . Solandt , Director General of Defence Research , an Order in Council was signed on October 17 , 1946 , that created the Interim Defence Research Board . The four interim board members were Dr . C . H . Best , Dr . Otto Maass , Dr . P . E . Gagnon , and Colonel R . D . Harkness with Dr . Solandt as the chairman . The first meeting was held on December 16 , 1946 . On March 28 , 1947 , Bill 19 , which amended the National Defence Act of 1927 , became law and legally established the Defence Research Board . A note on the joint British / Australian " Australian Field Experimental Station ( AFES ) " : AFES was constructed at Gunyarra , a railway siding about 12 miles south of Proserpine , Queensland in 1944 . AFES was established to continue the research and experimental work carried out by the Australian Chemical Warfare Research and Experimental Section ( A . C . W . R . & E . S . ) at Innisfail , Queensland in 1943 / 44 . Activities at this Station continued until the end of the war . For some time it was placed in a care and maintenance situation but was finally dismantled .