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The Tunnels of Moose Jaw has been holding a ‘Classroom Contest’ for three years running, and this year the Grade 12 ELA A30 and History 30 class from William Derby School in Strasbourg had the winning entry — they got a tour of Bunker 24 and a visit with the author of a book on ‘The Great Mossbank Debate’ of 1957.
“We’re the seniors of 2025 from William Derby in Strasbourg, and our teacher said that there was a contest to go to the new Moose Jaw Tunnels (tour),” explained Devin Schmidt, who volunteered as the spokesperson for the group.
“So, we started looking into it, and we learned about the book (Thatcher versus Douglas: The CCF, the Liberals, and the Mossbank Debate of 1957, by Malcolm Bucholtz), and that the author would be speaking to us, and it was very interesting. We had to make a video in order to enter, so we started looking into the content that the tour would be going over and the content of the book.
“We realized it connected beautifully with what we’ll be learning in English and History this year.”
Bunker 24 explores the history of Canada and Saskatchewan in the post-WWII era. Participants play the roles of new Canadian agents, exploring the so-called Red Scare and its effect on Canadian politics and politicians like Tommy Douglas, and how the country prepared for a possible nuclear war in the face of the Cold War Arms Race.
“Our Bunker 24 tour takes place in 1958,” explained Kelly Carty, business development manager at the Tunnels of Moose Jaw. The time period coincides with the rise of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), precursor of the NDP, and the establishment of universal healthcare by CCF and NDP leader Tommy Douglas — who was accused of being a communist by the federal government — and Saskatchewan Premier Woodrow Stanley Lloyd.
“We tell this story ... from the eyes of someone in 1958, so sometimes people get a little prickly because they think we’re insulting Tommy Douglas and calling him a communist,” Carty laughed. “We don’t think that. We know what a great man he was, we know what he did for this country.
“But, we want people to understand where he came from and how we became a country that has publicly funded healthcare. ... It’s really important for the Tunnels to teach history in a fun way. This is the third year we’ve had this contest. Students come here, they have a great time, but they actually learn, and we want teachers and the public to know that this is a great way to learn the history of your country, your province, your city.”
Following their tour of Bunker 24, the class sat down to hear from Malcolm Bucholtz about the research that led to his book about Thatcher and Douglas. The debate is famous in the history of Canadian politics for being the first open-forum, almost gladiatorial style of political debate. It was broadcast on radio stations of the time, including 800CHAB, and attracted an unprecedented amount of public attention.
Students said the discussion was very interesting and connected to their current studies.
“I’m glad to have had a chance to talk to these young people,” Bucholtz said. “We may never see another politician like Tommy Douglas. I hope we do, I really do, but politics today, I think, has lost the aspect of genuinely caring about the people, and it’s more concerned about getting re-elected.
“He did politics differently, and unfortunately it earned him the label ‘Communist’. And I just think that’s so unfair.”