Operation "Lifesaver" and the Evacuation in Calgary‪.‬

By 1955, Canada was swept into the frenzy of the Cold War as the threat of nuclear attack put the entire nation on edge. (1) People understood the country's position as a "likely nuclear battleground" due to its geographical positioning between Russia and the United States. (2) In response to these insecurities Operation "Lifesaver" was developed. It called for a large region of Calgary to be evacuated in the event of an attack. The plan was initiated by the federal government in the belief that "mass evacuation is the only defence against atomic and hydrogen weapons," (3) and that Calgary was chosen because "it [had] good civil defence." (4) The purpose of the exercise, according to the press, was to determine "some of the problems that would be faced by cities such as Calgary when evacuating large groups of people from a threatened area prior to an enemy attack." (5) Stated Sir John Hodsoll, chief civil defence advisor to NATO, "We are concerned fundamentally with survival of population and this exercise is the first time in the world that a rehearsal of conditions of atomic warfare has taken place." (6)