Small Arms Limited (SAL) As It Stands Now (2020)
Although it seems like yesterday, back on 14 June 2020, my father and I went on a bit of a road trip down the 401 to Long Branch, to check out the old Small Arms Limited (SAL) factory. Over the past few years I have been doing a lot of research into SAL and Canadian Arsenals Ltd (CAL), with the intention of finishing the book I have been writing...
It truly warmed my heart to see this sign on the front lawn. When I visited the factory in 2017 I saw a real estate sign out front which stated that factory grounds had sold to a dance studio company. However, the city of Mississauga stepped in and designated the grounds a historic site and turned the remaining buildings into a museum. I think they have done quite a good job in doing so. The building still wears the original brick with many of the wartime windows are still intact. Of course, the interior has been updated somewhat to ensure that the building is up to code.
Above is the main door of the head office. During the war, tracks for street cards were built to bring workers in from all around Long Branch (now a suburb of Toronto) and dropped them off right in front of this door and the one for the main factory. Across the street (Lakeshore Blvd) from the building is now an old Ford dealership. During the war, this used to be the girls' dormitory (seen below).
Walking around the the side of the building, where the parking lot for the museum is now, you can see more of the restoration.
Behind the remaining buildings and across a small old parking lot, lies the foundation of former building. The original concrete floor remains and brick walls (including I beams) can still be seen. I cannot say for sure what happened inside this particular building but there has been much speculation, which I will touch on shortly.
Behind the torn down building lies a fenced off area that has a huge mound of dirt. The dirt mound now has a lot of grass and other vegetation growth, but what really strikes me as interesting is the sign in front of it (below). The sign states that there is radioactive waste buried in the mound but in talking to former employees and a few who are working around there today, they have brought up another story. I have heard from former employees that lots of old machine gun parts were buried in an old underground shooting range. I recently spoke with someone who works around the area now and he told me that sometimes sink holes will show up from time to time around the mound of dirt and small parking lot, implying that what lies underneath is hollow. So is the dirt mound truly buried radioactive material? Or could the mount and signs be there to deter people from digging down into the old range and finding machine gun parts? Who knows...
We then followed one of the hiking trails south of the buildings (and dirt mound) to see if we could find the old shooting range. I tried to take as many photos as possible but I'm confident in saying that we did find it. Here are pictures of the baffling that was used to keep noise pollution down or even stop a stray .303 round. These baffles are well over 10' tall and are filled with sand. It crazy to think that these baffles are now made out of 81 year old cedar boards and are still standing proudly today...
We walked south, down the middle of the baffles, to see where the Lee Enfield and FN C1 rounds would've ended up and I believe we found the answer. Around 300 metres from the now torn down building/concrete floor (which I assume was the building they shot from as there is a perfect firing lane to the backstop with baffles on the left and right), we found the backstop. The giant concrete structure sits on top of a large dirt mount and itself probably 35' high. It has concrete wings which are aligned into the centre of the structure. It was hard to get a good picture as it's now mostly covered in vegetation. It was very cool to see this backstop. Despite the fact that there is a lot of graffiti, the history therein cannot be covered up. Scattered all along this wall are small impact holes and in the centre, there is a lot of concrete missing, enough to show the rebar. Halfway up the wall, there is some sort of roof that I assume was build to catch the shrapnel from bullets impacting. The underside of the roof was covered in wood, which has numerous bullet holes, or "zoomers" in it.
Once we finished with the backstop, we walked northeast, headed towards the famous water tower. East of the remaining buildings is a massive clearing. We headed up to the water tower to get a closer look.
Once we were done at the water tower, I turned around to admire the view. I then remembered a picture I saw from when the factory was still in use. There were many buildings with "sawbuck" roofs which actually housed all the machines where the parts and pieces of the No4 rifle, STEN submachine gun, C1 rifle and C2 LMG were made. It then dawned on me that I was standing where these buildings once stood. I realized this even more as I found a pile of what looked like the remains of concrete flooring and also several old concrete roads throughout this open field.
When I got home I home I looked up this picture and saw how much the factory has changed of the years. The two remaining buildings are outlined by the black square, and the water tower outlined in red. It just goes to show how much land the factory covered. An interesting note, just behind the two buildings outlined in black is the building which is no longer there (the concrete floor). A direct 300m shot south from that building is the backstop.
But that pretty much sums up today's tour. For a big history nerd and Canadian small arms collector like myself, it was definitely worth the road trip. I got to thinking, on the ride home, I really wonder what if would've been like to wonder those halls all those years ago...
Thanks,
Kevin
