Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services

Hay River (Oct 22/01) - From a boat on Great Slave Lake, two landmarks stand out along the southern shoreline near Hay River. A 17-storey apartment building and a giant antenna that was part of the Cold War's Distant Early Warning (DEW) line.

A local man who bought two of the dish-shaped monoliths after the Eastern bloc was no longer a threat has stories about an unusual man searching for aliens and Star Wars laser experiments.

For the first five years of owning the side-by side dishes, Bob Dean rented them to an eccentric mad-scientist type who brought both back to life.

The tenant turned the array into a radiotelescope for listening to life signs from the cosmos.

"He had all his equipment in here. I never paid much attention to what he was doing."

A skeptical Dean was polite when the former NorthwesTel employee would show him reams of graphs like those drawn by lie detectors, indicating "blips" from outer space.

Dean tore down one dish when the renter, a member of a group associated with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, Ca., moved on. He left one standing because "it's kind of a landmark."

Then there was the time soon after that a mysterious California company called to ask about leasing the dish to receive laser beams shot across Great Slave Lake. "They wouldn't give me too many details."

Although Dean believes the dish would be ideal for that sort of thing, he seems relieved when he says they never called back.

"They wanted to test some kind of laser weapon."

More recently, someone suggested converting the whole thing into a multi-level greenhouse. He thinks that idea has merit, "but I'm not much of a gardener."

Dean jokes he owns the world's largest TV antenna. He competed against the town when the eight-acre beachfront facility was put on the block 16 years ago. He came out on top with a bargain basement tender bid under $20,000.

Dean, a 52 year-old building contractor, is less open to strange proposals since fixing up and moving into the main building, which was a military communications nerve centre. Today it's a stunning home. All he really would like is for an artist to come along who wants to paint a giant mural on the dish's smooth and curvy surface.

Every year a handful of tourists driving by stop in to ask questions, like why does a drive-in theatre face the water. The only practical thing the dish does now is make the wind swirl around Dean's house, keeping snowdrifts away.