Explosives experts contracted by the Department of National Defence will spend much of 2025 at North Vancouver’s Blair Rifle Range Lands, aiming to make the former military training site safe from unexploded grenades and mortar shells.
Though the lands between the Blueridge neighborhood and the Northlands Golf Course are now mainly used by mountain bikers and dog walkers, the site was a military training ground from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Unexploded ordnance (or UXO) contractors began scouring the site, on and off, with metal detectors since 2018. The search has turned up six mortar shells of varying types and a grenade with high explosives still intact, requiring Canadian Forces bomb disposal experts to safely detonate them on site.
They’ve also carted out 651 kilograms of munition remnants, including mortar shells, grenade components, practice rounds, small arms ammunition, and paraflares, and another 7,600 kg of other garbage left in the woods.
DND now has the end of that work in its sights.
“To date, 14.75 hectares have been addressed out of an estimated 22.75 hectares of accessible area,” a statement from DND read. “We are hopeful that the majority of UXO clearance work, in accessible areas, will be completed by the end of November 2025. As the schedule is highly dependant on the number of anomalies found (both munition and non-munition related), it is possible that some work may continue into 2026.”
From February to November, the UXO team will be concentrating their survey on the six to eight hectares at the northern end of the sight that aligns, roughly, with the top of the golf course and Hyannis Drive.
During that time, trails through the area will be periodically closed to allow crews to do their work.
DND has budgeted $6.75 million to mitigate the risk posed by potential explosives left at the “legacy site.”
Today, the land is jointly owned by the province and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. There are no plans to repurpose the land, which would require a much more invasive remediation of the property.
In the meantime, it is expected that crews will have to remove some trees.
“Low-lying brush removal is required to enable the use of geophysical equipment. Our UXO contractor only removes trees that pose a hazard (i.e. trees that are partially fallen), for the safety of UXO employees and public users,” their statement read.
When the search first began, DND’s admittedly incomplete records indicated the range was only ever used for rifle and pistol practice, but Blueridge historian Donna Sacuta, who published a history of the range in 2015, uncovered accounts from officers who had trained with grenades and mortar shells as well.
When the survey began in 2018, Sacuta said it was clear that DND would have to widen the scope of its search to truly make the lands safe again.
“We’ve come from the point where they said they were only going to search within two feet of the side of the trails to now basically doing the entire area,” she said. “So I think that’s a win.”
Because of the risk of UXO on the Blair Rifle Range Lands, the Department of National Defence warns against digging or building fires anywhere on the property. The chance of a UXO detonating on its own is low, but it’s possible if they are disturbed and the mortar shells that have been found can be lethal to anyone within 10 metres.
DND advises for anyone who finds what appears to be an unexploded bomb to leave the area immediately and call 911.
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