Society for the Preservation of Canada's Nuclear Heritage

03/27/2026

Christopher “Kit” Coleman died on Monday, March 23, 2026. He passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his family, after a short battle with cancer.

https://www.valleyfuneralhome.ca/.../ChristopherKit-Coleman

Kit had a distinguished 35-year career at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) at Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories; he moved here with his wife Judith and their children in 1965 after completing his PhD in the U.K. A metallurgist, his graduate work on hydrogen and zirconium systems was an excellent fit to the CANDU-related work being carried out at Chalk River.

Kit became an expert in the use of zirconium and its alloys for pressure tubes and fuel sheathing. Amongst other awards, Kit received the 1998 William J. Kroll Zirconium Medal for his work "Simulating the Behaviour of Zirconium-Alloy Components in Nuclear Reactors" https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/20393519

I had the pleasure of interviewing Kit at our museum in 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7MCt-sVfbo&t=15s
Requiescat in pace, Kit.
Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

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03/26/2026

Grateful to the former employee, who worked at Douglas Point during the late 1960s(!), for sharing an image of these commemorative stamps from his collection. Issued in 1966, the Douglas Point Nuclear Generating Station stamp honours Canada's history of nuclear innovation. We love hearing from folks who worked at our legacy reactor sites, don't hesitate to reach out!

02/25/2026

This morning we received a couple of parcels from a friend of the Society (SPCNHI), on behalf of a friend of his. Lots of interesting books, but then this …

It’s the pew leaflet (and admission ticket) from the funeral of Lord Rutherford of Nelson, namely New Zealand-born Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford. The Canadian connection is that Rutherford was the Macdonald Professor of Physics at McGill University, from 1898 to 1907, when he returned to the UK. In 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work done at McGill. His connections to Canada continued with his friendship with former student Harriet Brooks, and subsequent students like George Laurence. Rutherford’s students Wilfrid Bennett Lewis and John Cockcroft were also major figures in Canada’s nuclear story.

In the parcel I discovered one more precious item, a card from the Rutherfords inviting “Mr Marshall” to an evening together (dinner?). Mr Marshall was the donor’s father at St John’s College, Cambridge, and was part of Rutherford’s group in the 1930s.

It appears to be (possibly - I’m no handwriting expert) in the hand of Ernest Rutherford. Wow! Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

02/07/2026

Last night the “father” of the SLOWPOKE reactor, John Hilborn, was presented with a copy of IAEA Technical Report 497 “History, Development and Future of SLOWPOKE and MNSR Research Reactors”, by Dave Winfield, one of the primary authors. The event was held at the W.B. Lewis Public Library in Deep River, and the wonderful CEO Naomi Balla-Boudreau can be seen behind John during the presentation.

It was also a chance to celebrate John’s upcoming 99th birthday (John and his wife Elisabeth are seen cutting the cake)! Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM Canadian Nuclear Laboratories AECL

01/16/2026

I spent a pleasant hour chatting with J. (Ian) Glen, who retired from AECL Chalk River some 30 years ago. He had worked on designing and building such things as the liquid zone controllers in the Pickering reactors, and a number of components of the SLOWPOKE heating reactor (e.g., SDR and SES-10).

In addition, Ian was a champion tennis player of the Deep River Yacht and Tennis Club (“yacht” was a bit of a stretch). Ian has current custody of the tennis cup, since he won the men’s singles many times in his younger years.

However, look closely at the first winner’s name, in 1948. B. Pontecorvo is none other than the brilliant Italian physicist (a student of Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi’s) who helped develop a lot of early reactor physics and also helped design Canada’s NRX reactor. His passion, though, was neutrinos, which (amongst other things) may have led him to defect (disappear) to the USSR with his family in 1950. Had he not ended up sidelined in the Soviet Union, Bruno may also have become a Nobel Laureate. Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

01/16/2026

Our museum recently received a full-size cutaway model of the rods used to irradiate HEU for molybdenum-99 production, in AECL’s NRU reactor. The moly-99 fission product decayed (66-hr half-life) to technetium-99m. In turn, the decay of Tc-99m to Tc-99 (6-hr half-life) spit out a 140 keV gamma, used for diagnostic imaging. In 2010, Nordion (in Kanata, Ontario, where the moly-99 was shipped for final processing) sold sodium molybdate at $US 1500/Ci. NRU ceased Mo-99 production in 2016 Oct and was shut permanently on 2018 Mar 31 (just over a 60 year life!). At its peak, NRU generated about 60% of the world’s supply of Mo-99.

Thanks to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories for donating the rod to us. The photos show: the flow spreader (only the centre portion of the rod contains fuel, and the heavy water cooling had to be spread evenly amongst the 4 fuelled subchannels); the cutaway revealing HEU fuel pins (there is NO fuel in our model!); and two shots of the end of the fuel portion (an additional flow tube was attached to make the whole assembly the full height of the core). Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

12/17/2025

12/14/2025

Over the past few years our museum has made about 20 video interviews of people involved with the early years of nuclear science and technology. Recently we added four more videos, including an interview with Ray Morrison.

Ray tells his engaging story of being a Royal Marine in the Royal Navy, sent out (voluntold) on the secret mission to Australia (Montebello Islands) to detonate the first British atomic weapon on 1952 Oct 03. Ray was an engine room mechanic and operator of a landing craft, which was used to shuttle scientists and technicians between the navy warships and the various land-based measurement and observation stations. Ray got an up-close (inadvertently too close!) view of the atomic blast.

Canada pursued only civilian applications of nuclear science and technology; while not directly part of Canada's nuclear story, the UK weapons program was intertwined with the Canadian nuclear program because of the joint Canada-UK program during WWII. After the war most (all?) of the British scientists returned to the UK to work on the British weapons program under John Cockcroft (second director of the Montreal Laboratory/Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories). Many British scientists, technologists and tradespeople joined CRNL in the 1940s through the 1960s.

The interview of Ray Morrison is found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzJ0DQLPRZM&t=1s
Enjoy!

11/03/2025

Here’s the latest treasure donated to the Canadian Nuclear Heritage Museum, a Stromberg Time Corporation clock received today from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories at Chalk River. It has a metal tag indicating it was used at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's NRX reactor, and the master clock schedule taped inside the door dates to 1963 February.

So, what was the purpose of this clock? Perhaps Allan Symons - one of our board members and director of the nearby Canadian Clock Museum - will be able to help. If you know its story, please contact us at [email protected] Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

11/03/2025

Thanks again to the Whistle Stop DRDH Auxiliary for finding an AECL treasure. We appreciate their identifying these items and passing them on for the museum collection. Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

10/22/2025

This past week we received our first full-length fuel bundle model (i.e., it contains no UO2) for the Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) reactor. It has only seven 25.4-mm (1-inch) OD fuel elements, each wire wrapped to improve heat transfer to the heavy-water coolant in the 82.55-mm (3.25-inch) ID pressure tubes.

NPD attained first criticality and first electricity in 1962, and operated to 1987 (it was expected to have only a 10-year life). As a demonstration, research and training power reactor, NPD was the grandfather of all CANDU reactors. A brilliant design, it was a joint project amongst Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (labs now run by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories), Canadian General Electric (subsidiary of GE Power), and the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario (later Ontario Power Generation).

The 495-mm-long seven-element natural-U bundles were used in the 80 outer fuel channels (9 bundles/channel), with a maximum bundle heat of 2.98 kW/cm length. They had an average in-core life of 4.0 years and an average burnup of 6500 MWd/tonne U.

The inner 52 channels also had nine natural-U bundles each but with 19 elements of 15.5-mm OD. These bundles had a maximum bundle heat of 4.47 kW/cm, an average in-core life of 2.2 years, and an average burnup of 6330 MWd/tonne U.

The photos show the black (oxidized?) 7-element bundle with a section of pressure tube actually cut out of NPD (it shows the grooves from the rolled joint), with a channel spacer (garter spring) to assist maintaining the separation between the Zr-alloy pressure tube and its aluminum calandria tube (subsequent CTs are Zr-2). The final photo compares the 7-element bundle to the 19-element version, the latter being a half-length model used as a lamp base (for a retirement gift). Note that normally fuel bundles are shiny.

Upper Ottawa Valley GLAM

10/16/2025

Thank you to the Whistle Stop DRDH Auxiliary for passing on a copy of the book Canada Enters The Nuclear Age and the commerative coasters. Feel free to let the museum know of any nuclear related memorabilia or books you wish to donate.