>> It's 1942. The Canadian military has identified me as having talents that are suited to the clandestine war effort.
>> They send me to Camp X. A 275 acre training camp on the shore of Lake Ontario, only 50km across from the United States.
>> Only a sign greets me as I enter and proceed down the gravel driveway. We stop at the guardhouse momentarily as they check my papers.
>> To my right sits the large, long Communications building. Just out of eyesight, women and men work at teletype machines, creating kilometres of coded and uncoded messages.
>> Security is paramount. Only first names are used in the Communications building. You don't tell anyone what your job is, and you don't ask.
>> To my left is the Commandant's Quarters. With my rank, I'll never see the inside of that building.
>> Huge rhombic antennae loom in the field to the south, communicating with London and New York via Morse code.
>> The public have been told they belong to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, extending service for local customers.
>> Further forward on my left I see a large shed. Seven feet up, beyond the height of prying eyes, windows ring the building.
>> The shed actually houses HYDRA, a 15MHz short wave transmitter/receiver that is connected to the array of antennae outside.
>> As we drive past, HYDRA's floor-to-ceiling doors open and a large piece of machinery is wheeled out, headed to a well-equipped repair shop.
>> My attention is drawn to the right, where men are jumping from a tall platform to the ground far below. Parachute training. I'll be climbing the Jump Tower soon enough.
>> My vehicle finally stops in front of a building I'll become very familiar with: the Lecture Hall.
>> I'll study in the classroom, taking instruction from the blackboard. The library will supply me with all manner of books on spying, both fictional and factual.
>> A room here houses the uniforms, regalia, currency and weaponry of the Axis forces. I'll memorize them all.
>> I walk past a series of rooms where agents rehearse special operations. I will be one of them soon enough.
>> After an introductory briefing in the Lecture Hall, I'm led out behind it to two large H-shaped buildings.
>> These are the Barracks, where I'll be eating and sleeping with my fellow agents-in-training as well as Officers, N.C.O.'s, and other personnel.
>> To the south, through the two buildings, the sun is setting on Lake Ontario. The unobstructed view from here is beautiful.
>> [explosions]
>> A detonation from mortar training rocks the ground in the near distance. More follow. Back in my bunk I lie in a bed that's not my own. I miss my family.
>> An alarm wakes us at 03:00. Night assault training. I crawl silently from the cold water of Lake Ontario and across the rough, wet ground.
>> It seems impossible now, but I'll get used to this. And climbing ropes with a heavy pack on. And underwater explosives training. I'll know every acre of this camp.
>> I'm trained to remember countless tiny details for missions, yet forget any details about Camp X. The training seems to both last forever and rush past.
>> I'm sent on my first mission, accompanied by several fellow agents. We smile nervously at each other in the plane. Was our training enough?
>> It must have been. For me, at least. The war is over and I'm home alive. Unlike a disturbingly high number of my friends.
>> I read in the newspaper that the camp is turned over to the Canadian Corps of Signals and renamed the Oshawa Wireless Station.
>> By the early 1970s, Camp X is gone. Bulldozed into the lake after being decommissioned. I walk past the empty site, trying desperately to recall forgotten details.
>> In the mid-1980s, just 17 of Camp X's original 275 acres are preserved as Intrepid Park. I attend the ceremony where a monument is raised honouring our fallen allies.
>> I leave through an industrial area of what is now called Whitby.
>> I close my eyes, remembering a sun, setting on a lake, in a time that no longer seems real.