Lynn Doucette

Lt. Doucette in Mess Dress.

Lynn Doucette was born on August 27, 1956, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.¹ She grew up here surrounded by nature, playing, exploring and enjoying life with her seven siblings, four brothers and three sisters. She enjoyed many sports and activities over her childhood. Growing up, Lynn aspired to join the RCMP but did not meet the height requirement when applying. In July 1979, after hearing about her brother's incredible experience joining the Navy, she decided to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces. Lynn arrived in North Bay in May of 1980 as a Lieutenant. Until September 1981, she trained and worked on crew as an Air Weapons Controller. After being promoted and relocated many times to many different positions and jobs across North America, she returned to North Bay in 1988. She had just been promoted to Major in 1987 and was now working in the Underground Complex as a Senior Director and Flight Commander on crew until being transferred again in 1990. Lynn was among the first four Canadians stationed at the Alaskan NORAD Region.

In 1994, Lynn was one of the first female Arms Control Inspectors helping communist countries join NATO. She has numerous career highlights over the course of her time in the Canadian Armed Forces. Lynn remained single throughout her career and stated this was the reason she was able to engage with so many career opportunities. She retired to British Columbia in 2014 after 35 years of service.

First female Mission Crew Commander on USAF AWACS

First female Arms Control Inspector

First Canadian female Battle Staff on AWACS

Enlistment

Lynn Doucette found her way into the Canadian Armed Forces in an interesting way. Growing up, her childhood home was located across the street from the RCMP Headquarters at the time in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This led Lynn to aspire to join the RCMP. However, after applying to become an RCMP officer, Lynn was turned down. It turns out she did not meet their height requirement. She was a quarter of an inch too short. Based on her interest in the RCMP and having always been fit and active, she completed a physical education degree with a minor in criminology. In July 1979, after hearing about her brother's incredible experience joining the Navy, she decided to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces. Without any knowledge about the military and full of naivety, she went to the recruitment center to enlist, and as Lynn said, “the rest was history.”

Training

Lynn had to come to North Bay in May of 1980 for training as an Air Weapons Controller in the Underground Complex. This was the only training facility in Canada for that career field at the time. The courses were very small and only took ten applicants at a time. Lynn had to wait a little while to get into a course. Training was an important part of work at the base. When your job title changed you had to complete additional training exercises in order to meet the requirements for the new position. At least once a month, there were Air Base exercises as well as Base Defence Force exercises, though Lynn often did not participate in this training because she was considered critical staff when on shift. Furthermore, military personnel were required to do so many training exercises a month to upkeep their position and status otherwise they had to start again from the bottom. When the Cold War began to quiet down, the Soviets were less active and the military had smaller budgets. As a result there were fewer resources for training exercises; however, written testing continued to upkeep security clearances and keys. Additionally, NORAD Headquarters would do surprise evaluations at random intervals known as NOEs, NORAD Operations Evaluations to maintain and evaluate readiness.
When Lynn worked at the Alaskan NORAD Region she completed hands on training exercises with their Fighter Squadron that was on base. She got to participate and debrief with the pilots. She did extensive training and remembered being corrected immediately if something went wrong. Here, her superiors noted her exceptional skill in training exercises, “I was pretty damn good. I was asked by name for a lot of the more intensive missions.”
During her time in North Bay, Lynn had the pleasure of participating in exercises that were used to help train other military personnel. One of the exercises included her playing a medical victim. She shared, “so I got all done up in makeup which looks like I was basically blown up and I had you know burn marks and all this stuff all over me.” This was an exercise to help the medics practice and train. Another type of training she participated in included Base Defence Force exercises. These exercises trained personnel as “a secondary duty for people that if something happened on the base they would be called out to do whatever whether it was roadblocks, doing searches.” Lynn was tasked with trying to infiltrate her way into the powerhouse as a civilian. She should have been stopped by the staff and even arrested if necessary. However, she claimed, “I'm just supposed to start a job here today and you got you know, I don't know what you guys are doing, but I was told if I don't show up, I'm not gonna get my job.” They let her enter, “I infiltrated it and I got in. I was a very good liar. I was very believable.”
Lynn also experienced organizing, planning and running training exercises when she worked for the Alaskan NORAD Region. This position kept her quite busy as she was managing 4-6 exercises a month both simulated and real life. The process for running an exercise from start to finish was incredibly difficult and in depth that could take months of planning. However, Lynn stated, “I love doing the military exercises.”

“So I got all done up in makeup which looks like I was basically blown up and I had you know burn marks and all this stuff all over me.”- Lynn participating in a Base Defence Force medic training exercise.

Alongside the RCMP and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), she ran exercises to counter drug smuggling and involved staged events that participants did not know were not real. She had a plane fly up to the East Coast of Canada from Bermuda with a so-called drug runner on board. The Base scrambled to get fighter jets up on the Eastern Seaboard of the US until Nova Scotia where Canadian fighter jets took over. She had the plane circle over the Bay of Fundy where she had an employee of the Department of Fisheries on a boat dump bails of hay overboard to make it look as if the plane dumped drugs into the water. Those involved in the exercise thought it went perfectly and could not believe how much she thought it out. She also planned an exercise known as Operation Blue Line on the West Coast of Canada. She had a plane fly up from Baja and once it reached Vancouver Island a second plane joined it and split around the island. Now the team had to figure out which one to track. but they had picked the wrong plane. Lynn was depending on them to choose the correct plane. She manipulated the exercise mid execution to insure they landed at the correct airport where she has an RCMP Emergency Response Team (ERT), waiting to complete a training exercise. On the coasts they have Coastal Watch which allows citizens to call into the RCMP if they spot something suspicious. Lynn called in: “I pretended I was Martha and ‘I could see this plane and it looks like he's doing this [strange thing].’” This tip led the team to continue to track the correct plane and allowed the second training exercise for the ERT to be completed. She shared that, “you do a lot of it by the seat of your pants…it almost fell apart in the last half hour but we saved it and it went off and everybody got good training out of it.”

Lynn Doucette's Job Details

As a career-oriented single female officer throughout her career, it was more convenient for the military to move Lynn around rather than move an officer with a family. As a result, Lynn believes she received more interesting opportunities and career advancements due to her relationship status.

Lynn came to North Bay in the spring of 1980 as a Lieutenant at the height of the Cold War. The Soviets were very active at the time, and because she had top-secret clearance, she knew about the two-man key to the big nuclear button. During this time, they were constantly training and testing the systems, ensuring all the rules and regulations were current. There were times when aircraft would lose communications, and she helped rescue them by pointing them in the right direction as a controller.

“The fighters were fairly active back then because we had so many bases. So your normal day as a Lieutenant, especially myself as an Air Weapons Controller, is sitting on a console and talking to the, at that time, the Voodoo Jets and doing the training with them. We also trained with the Americans and some of their assets, and then we had mini-exercises and then huge, huge, big, big exercises with lots of assets. You know, like global nuclear war, that kind of stuff. But it was pretty fun and pretty exciting stuff.”

The Crew farewell plaque designed by one of her Captains after a competition.

The life of an air weapons controller is shift work. Often, she worked four on and three off. If you finished at midnight, you would have to be back the next morning at 8:00 a.m. Fortunately, they had enough people that they had 8-hour shifts instead of the usual 12-hour shifts when they were lacking manpower. There were times when, instead of the usual four on, three off, she would have to work seven on, seven off. It all depended on what was going on.
As a Lieutenant, Lynn was only in charge of two or three people below her, such as corporals and sergeants, and wrote their evaluation reports. During this time, she had to take weekly and monthly tests to be on her game.

Maj. Doucette on duty as Mission Crew Commander in the UGC.

Once Lynn got promoted to Major she was brought back to North Bay in February of 1988 to be a Flight Mission Crew Commander. She worked in the Underground Complex. She was then in charge of, at one time, between 80 and 90 people. She was responsible for their paperwork, promotions, demotions and in her words, "keeping them out of jail". As a Senior Officer, she was also in charge of managing performance reports and meetings. There was also constant training and evaluations. She had a Crew Chief who helped her manage everything. As a Senior Officer, you're also required to do secondary duties. So, she became the President of the Officer's Mess for a year. She was responsible for formal dinners and any VIP visits. Part of that was setting up the menu, deciding on the guest speaker, crowd control and looking after the VIPs when they arrived.

SAGE System and AWACS

When Lynn joined the RCAF they were already upgraded and utilizing SAGE for radar surveillance. SAGE, which stood for Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, was a radar computer system that surveilled all airspace and provided air traffic control over North America for NORAD.² When she was moved to the Alaskan NORAD Region in 1981, she was tasked with training personnel on SAGE—this new generation of radar surveillance as they were still using plotting boards. Lynn also notes the changes that emerged as a result of cell phone communication.

She recalled, “I was out cross country skiing one day and the boss called me and I'm like ‘I'm busy; it's my time off.’” The opportunity for constant and immediate communication changed how accessible military personnel were to 'the higher ups' when in a time of need. Additionally, the Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft (AWACS), brought significant technological advances to the military and Air Force.³ This was the first time Lynn saw email and chat capability being housed and utilized within an aircraft. AWACS was developed in the late 70s, but in many ways they were well beyond their time as they connected all departments of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Navy, the Army and the Air Force and shared information between and across them for cross-agency communication. She stated, “just the stuff that that airplane could do blew my mind…that was pretty eye-opening it was and as old as it was was pretty, pretty amazing.”

Work Environment & Comradery

For her, the job “was interesting, different, challenging, exciting and tedious all at the same time.” For her first time in North Bay, she lived with other single women in one of the two biggest houses on Base. Each house had a big kitchen, laundry facilities, separate bedrooms and living rooms. Lynn describes them as all becoming good friends because they lived in such close quarters, but the life of an Air Weapons Controller also made it difficult because it was a lot of shift work. Lynn describes the two homes as being across from the flight line, where they saw all kinds of activities and planes taking off.

When you joined the military, according to Lynn, “ they owned your butt 24/7, and there were surprise inspections and even on your days off, you could have been recalled into work.” There were also very strict protocols when walking around on Base. If the general drove by in his flag car everybody had to stop and salute him. When you walked past senior officers you also had to salute and you were required to be in your best kit at all times.

Lynn describes a time when it was hard for her to separate her military mindset from her personal one while she was on vacation back home. She told us that in later years, she had a high top-secret level clearance position, which often led to a strict need-to-know basis. While she was home, she answered the phone, and one of her niece's friends asked where her niece was. Lynn describes giving her the third degree and not ending up telling her where her niece was because she was in the military need-to-know mindset. Lynn describes herself as being “a little too wound up and a little too regulated [meaning] it was very hard just to relax [at first when she got home.]”

Lynn describes her time as an Air Weapons Controller as being a pretty high-pressure job, but she was also able to make many good friends. In fact, two girls she met while working at the Base she still chats with online to this day. However, being a young single female officer, Lynn had to deal with the rumour mills often. An example of this is when she told us, “I could be talking to somebody downtown, and the next thing you know, I'm having a sordid affair with somebody.”

When she became a Flight Commander, she was in charge of 80 people. Three quarters of them were married, and half of those people had problems in their marriages. Being their Commander, she had to deal with this and the gossip that came along with it. There were also some problems with alcohol back then.
The second time she came to North Bay, she decided not to live on Base to avoid people scrutinizing her life. She found living off Base much better because she could have her own personal life then.

Lynn doesn't describe the job as stressful. She told us that most of her stress came from the administration side and the demands from the front office to do training. She believes that because you're trained in your job and know how to do things when problems do come along, you just do it and look forward to the challenge. She told us that the stress comes when you aren't prepared for things but that “one thing in the military, we are prepared, [for] every instance, and we trained up the wazoo to be prepared in every instance.”

Lynn also told us about her experiences as a woman in the military. At one point, she was flying with two men from Turkey which was a country that didn’t have any women in the military. When they landed, she was not allowed in their Operation Center. They also only referred to her as sir and never ma'am, often not paying attention to anything she said. Lynn told us that she brushed it off and didn't let things like that get to her. When she joined in July of 1979, they were just starting to let women into the military. She described a time when she was getting off the train on the Base, and some recruits said something nasty to all of the girls. She remembers thinking that the men needed to grow up, but that's as much as it affected her at that point. She told us that there were times later in her career when she didn't progress through the ranks because she was a woman, but again, she just brushed it off. At the time there was also such a thing as a “pink list.” A pink list was a list of women that the government was pushing into a senior officer's role even when they wouldn't really be eligible. This led to men resenting women even more. Lynn concludes that “we all got paid the same. Male, female, didn't matter. Again it was based on your rank and your credibility.”

Despite all of this, Lynn describes the best part of her time in the military was the camaraderie, that unless you're in the military, you don't understand it. She says that when you are on the night shift with somebody and bored, you talk a lot and share things about yourself you might not have known about yourself beforehand. She says, “you develop relationships that are very deep, and they just don't go away.” Lynn explained that sometimes her family couldn't relate to the experiences she had, and so being able to talk to a friend and colleague was really important. Overall when it comes to comradery, she told us that “we had a lot of fun, made some really good friends that I'm still friends with this day, civilian and, and military.”

Her Experience in the UGC

Lynn arrived in North Bay in May 1980, where she completed her training in the Underground Complex. Top-secret security clearance was required to get into the Underground Complex. According to Lynn, it was a pretty high-pressure job, especially in the Underground Facility, where things could change within minutes. The Soviets were still very active at this time, meaning that everyone was on alert and working extended shifts. At one point during Lynn’s time in the Underground Facility, there was a fire, and everyone had to evacuate.
When Lynn came back to North Bay the second time as a Senior Officer, she had a few different privileges. One of which was the ability to drive her own car down into the Underground Facility when she was on the night shift. Everybody else had to rely on the bus, which would come every 15 minutes or so. For those who did not have that privilege, their lives revolved around the bus schedule.
The whole security of it alone was another task. When you got on the bus, you had to go through the entry control area, which required a pass, and then you went into the tunnel, which can be very claustrophobic. Once you get to the end of the tunnel, everything you need is down there. There was a “Great Chow Hall,” a sick bay and a gym. The Underground Facility was also a great way to get out of the elements, including huge snowstorms they had back then. There was a saying going around where those who were leaving after a shift would ask the newcomers, “what’s the weather like on top?” This was done because they didn’t have weather services when the Underground Facility was functional. Lynn describes the Blue Room, where there were curtains dividing the space and behind them was the blue light and everybody sitting at consoles. Lynn describes a large dias where the boss works that could be a little intimidating. It was in this Blue Room that Lynn would work with Air Traffic Control, Transport Canada and many other government agencies.

There were many exercises conducted within the Underground Facility. Lynn told us that there was one at least once a month. When she saw her crew wasn’t doing much, she would also throw something together to give them some training. Of course, there were also surprise exercises that were put on by the training and exercise crew. One such example is when they pretended that Soviets were coming and everybody had to get in their battle positions. “Sometimes, it was a simulated exercise; other times, it was a real-world one. So they'd have an aircraft out there simulating off the coast that it was a Russian Bear coming down, and we all had to go through all of our hoops and checklists to do it properly, and then there was usually a test that was involved at the same time.”
There was also the “Brotherhood of the Underground Mushroomers.” Anyone who worked in the Underground Facility was considered part of this brotherhood. Someone came up with this name because they were kept in the dark and fed “fertilizer.” Those who were a part of the BUM, as they were also known, received a certificate when they left testing, along with gold mushroom pins they could wear.

Lynn's Impression of North Bay

Lynn only came to North Bay out of necessity to complete training as an Air Weapons Controller. However, she did not enjoy North Bay or spending time here saying, “ I would never have thought to go there on my own, no offence against North Bay… I didn’t like North Bay.” Lynn grew up in an incredibly quiet, small town that did not even have a stoplight so she was looking for the loud, big city experience.
She did not interact socially downtown much and found the activities North Bay had to offer did not suit her. She was not big into hunting, fishing or camping which were all quite big in North Bay. Lynn also mentions that North Bay was more suited for families rather than singles and being in the military it was even harder to establish relationships. Despite her lack of interest in North Bay, she did venture down into town on her bicycle to tour around the lake and the beach, she jokes “com[ing] back up that hill it was a challenge.” However, she did not spend much time in town during her first time in North Bay. During her second time in North Bay Lynn lived off base in Thibeault Terrace and was a little bit more active downtown at this time. She was getting out more, seeing more friends from the neighbourhood and hanging out with her neighbours. Lynn mentioned tension between the North Bay community and the military personnel. She stated, “You could tell there was a real difference between us and them, you know, like the townies versus the military people.”

Outside Working Hours

Lynn worked at CFB North Bay two short times throughout her 35-year career. While in North Bay she spent much of her time engaging with activities on base stating “most of the fun stuff we did were all military related…we had everything we needed on base.” They had a big gymnasium, a movie theater and the mess hall all on base. She quite enjoyed spending time at the gym staying fit and the Officer’s Mess as there were nightly activities such as music, dancing, drinking, games like cards or darts or pool and other Tom Foolery. She also enjoyed sunbathing even with the risk of distracting the headquarters.

Lt. Doucette on the veranda of their base house for single girls behind Base HQ across from the flight line.

Another event that Lynn hosted during her second time in North Bay was Patrick Party Bear. This was a charity event, similar to the Winter Carnival, held over the fall in efforts to raise money for the Special Olympics, a cause near and dear to Lynn’s heart as she started volunteering for the charity during her time in Alaska. The idea was proposed to her by Patrick, one of her Corporals, he was into DJing and had a big bear costume, thus the event was named Patrick Party Bear. The event included Patrick DJing from the beginning of the event continuously until the end, games and activities for both children and adults, pancake breakfasts, a BBQ, and beer gardens. One of the events was a ‘Sexy Man Contest’ and one of the bosses took home the prize for that one. This was a cooperative event between CFB North Bay and the North Bay community which included gift cards and vouchers to local stores as prizes. The event was successful and raised lots of money for charities and was held the next year as well.

At the time, when Lynn started at CFB North Bay, the few women lived in two houses outside the fenced off base rather than in dormitories as the men did. She shared that on a few occasions, they had parties at their house which were quite popular as they were single women. There were other base events such as the Defunct Clunk Party. This was the party they held when retiring the CF-100 aircraft where they brought in Snowbirds and hosted many activities both on and off base. Lynn shared that this was quite the party weekend as a young Lieutenant in her 20s, “I almost didn't make my flight. I was leaving for Montana that weekend…and only found out afterwards that I had left a load of laundry in the dryer. I left in such a hurry.” They also held VIP dinners on base for high-level military personnel, at one point Lynn was in charge of organizing and hosting these events. Her first plane ride took place before a formal dinner in North Bay sharing, “They decided they want[ed] lobsters, so we flew a plane to Prince Edward Island to get some.”

CFB North Bay Charity Event- Patrick Party Bear.

Maj. Doucette dressed up in french fry costume for Patrick Party Bear Charity Event.

As for Lynn’s free time off the base, she was a member of the Yacht Club in North Bay with a few of her comrades and would go down to the marina and hang out on the boats. Sometimes she would ride her bike down to the marina to tour around the docks. She grew up on the East Coast and always had an interest in the water and boating. Other times she would spend her days off traveling down to Ottawa to visit friends from the military. Lynn also shared that camping was not exactly one of her interests despite others going, stating, “We had all that boot camp. Thank you, no. I don't need to go do that or any of that stuff again.” The military also had an excellent vacation program for those who were single. Once a year, they would send you home fully paid to visit family. As a shift worker, she was able to take vacations between her one week on and one week off schedule to have three weeks at home with her family. Additionally, when attending conferences in other countries Lynn could take vacation time as well. She would spend a few extra days travelling around, sightseeing in new places, and then fly home on the ticket provided by the military.

Footnotes

1. Lynn Doucette, interview with Kassandra McLellan and Sarah Tipping, Sharing Stories of 22 Wing Collection, Canadian Forces Museum of Aerospace Defence, February 28, 2024.
Unless otherwise cited, all of the information on this page comes from the above interview.
2. Arner Joey, “CFB North Bay,” Military History of the Upper Great Lakes, Michigan Technical University, October 21, 2019, www.ss.sites.mtu.edu/mhugl/2019/10/21/cfb-north-bay/.
3. Nato. “AWACS: NATO’s ‘Eyes in the Sky.’” NATO, February 12, 2024. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_48904.htm.

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