Welcome to Project Rustic: Journey to the Diefenbunker

Project Rustic encourages Canadians to learn about the Continuity of Government Program and the role of the Central Emergency Government Headquarters in Canada during the height of the Cold War. At its core, this website uses the Diefenbunker, a National Historic Site and one of Canada’s most important Cold War artefacts, to provide insight into how our nation planned to survive a nuclear war between the two superpowers: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R) and the United States of America (U.S.A.). This project has a youth focus drawing apon the Grade 10 social studies curriculum. It uses humour and popular culture references to make it fun and interactive. Project Rustic will help to fill a gap in teacher resources around Canada and the Cold War. It is our hope that its arcade game-like quality will appeal to a youth-based audience and help to draw students into a dark period in Canada’s history. We believe this project will also help to spark meaningful discussions around contemporary political issues, how our government functions during times of crisis and what role civic participation plays in shaping our understanding of foreign and domestic policies. Project Rustic is a free interactive game hosted on the Diefenbunker’s web site therefore available to all Canadians with a computer and an internet connection.

This website sometimes uses irreverent humour to draw youth participants into serious subject matter. During the Cold War, fear of communist infiltration and of a nuclear holocaust was very prevalent. Most of the world was polarized between the two superpowers, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. Canada was aligned with the U.S.A. and NATO countries, therefore in the media and in politics of the time, the Soviets were often referred to as “the enemy”. We hope that teachers will use the Teacher Resources to explore this subject matter (including the use of stereotypes). This website refers to a historic period of time and the Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum in no way shares the viewpoints of the historic events and attitudes depicted.