[Birthday Party] Spy-themed Birthday party at Diefenbunk, Cold War Museum

As mentioned in a previous post, my baby turned six a week ago.

If you want to see Pablo's birthday cake, Red Velvet Cake, see this post.



We chose Diefenbunker, Canada's cold war museum, for the party "venue". The museum run a "espionage" themed birthday party. A spy-themed party at the former bunker during Cold War~ Doesn't it sound interesting, especially on a warm summer day?

Diefenbunkers are Emergency Government Headquarters are nuclear fallout bunkers built by the Government of Canada at the height of the Cold War.

A vintage computer~

A vintage phone.

 Scattered across the country, the shelters are popularly known as "Diefenbunkers" which was nicknamed by Liberal opposition politicians of the early 1960s.

 The name was derived from the name of the Prime Minister of the time, John Diefenbaker who authorized construction of the bunkers.

A huge four-storey bunker, buried deep under a hillside and meant to house crucial elements of Canadian government in a nuclear war.

Over 50 bunkers were built across Canada, but most of the Diefenbunkers were decommissioned, following the end of the Cold War. Several of them on active Canadian Forces Bases remain in government control.

The only Diefenbunker opened to the public may visit is the one at former Canadian Forces Station Carp where we had Pablo's birthday party.

As his birthday was in the middle of the summer vacation, we sent out the invitation before the vacation started. Guests were mostly Pablo's classmates with a couple of family friends.

All the RSVP arrived 2 weeks before the party.

 Party started outside of the bunker.

 The party program was spy-themed and run for about 2 hours, followed by a half-hour pizza+cake time.

 Most kids at the party just finished Senior Kindergarten,

but they were so well-mannered and super behaving.

They were listening the coordinator very attentively.

The coordinator led the program.

And kids learn how to observe "as spies", and find hints, disguise,

and actually chased and catched a special agent X to have "interrogation" time.

Kids having the emergency siren drill~

 Disguising time

Group shot.

Individual shot

The underground 4-story bunker was capable of withstanding a near-hit from a nuclear explosion.Underground storage was built for food, fuel, fresh water, and other supplies for the facility which was capable of supporting several hundred people for weeks.

I'll share a few photos of the Diefenbunker.

Washroom of the time in the bunker.

Not bad for an underground toilet~

Of course this was a part of facilities. There were washrooms for the visitors.

Prime minister's suite.

It looks modest, but it looked quiet luxury compared to other 12-bunker bed rooms.

 (Food storage)

Obviously there were lots of non-perishable(?) canned food.

(Samples of the dry food)

A very vintage TV.

One of the most impressive facilicites was the hospital. With this facilities, surprisingly, all the operations except for heart-open or brain surgery could be conducted.
The entire size of the bunker is over 100,000 square feet.

Oh another impressive facility in the bunker was a vault.

The vault was constructed on the lowest level to hold the gold reserves of the Bank of Canada for just in case.

Well, it's empty and you can go and see it. :)

We all had a great time.

As any fire was forbidden in the bunker,

Pablo couldn't blow the candles.

He pretended to blow though.

I baked a dark chocolate cake upon Pablo's request. Pizza was delivered to the ticket office before the pizza & cake time started. I had to come up to the ground zero level to pick up pizza.

 Mr. D forgot to take the photo of loot bag.

In my opinion,

the favorite thing about the birthday party for the birthday kid is all the presents he gets,

and the favorite thing of the guests, i.e. invited kids, is the loot bags they get at the end of the party.

There were all spy-themed disguising stuffs in the loot bags, which the kids got excited about .

If you want to see Remi's birthday party post, click here.

Party was fun.

It's actually fun to have a different themed party each year!

The phrase of the day:

"You are lucky to be alive, so Just eat it!"

This huge board was hung at the dining area of the bunker.

Birthday party at Difenbunker