Template:Wp-Deep River, Ontario-History

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Plans for the construction of this planned community began in 1944 by the federal government as part of the Manhattan Project, to accommodate employees of the nearby Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories (CRNL). Along with Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Chalk River was an offshoot of the nuclear effort for the allies and scientists, engineers, and tradesmen from around the world who came to work on the Manhattan Project. After World War II, Canada continued on with research into the atom, and dedicated the country to the peaceful uses that could be derived from putting the atom to use. Deep River was situated far enough upwind and upriver of the Chalk River research reactors to avoid radioactive fallout.

John Bland, an architecture professor at McGill University, developed the town's first master plan in 1944. Bland located the town between the existing Highway 17 and the Ottawa River. He designed a system of streets which generally followed the contours of the area's topography. Residential neighborhoods stretched out from a commercial and service-sector core. Straight and broad avenues ran along contour lines, while narrower and winding streets lay at right angles, discouraging non-local traffic from entering neighborhoods. Parks and schools were located strategically throughout the town. The streets were named after local flora, Canadian politicians and famous scientists such as Ernest Rutherford and Charles Darwin.

At the same time, its economy and development was further boosted by the construction of the Des Joachim Hydroelectric Generating Station and dam on the Ottawa River at Rolphton, which opened on June 28, 1950.

The town was the subject of a Maclean's Magazine article in 1958 by the noted Canadian journalist, editor, and author Peter C. Newman. Entitled, "Deep River: Almost the Perfect Place to Live," the article took a sardonic take on the town as a very odd and isolated place populated by mostly young, male, highly educated and bored scientists and technicians struggling to find things to do with their time: "The Utopian town where our atomic scientists live and play has no crime, no slums, no unemployment and few mothers-in-law."

In 1962, the experimental Nuclear Power Demonstration or NPD power reactor started up as a prototype for later CANDU reactors. This was operated by Ontario Hydro, which later used it as a training facility for new employees in their Nuclear division. This brought many more temporary residents to the town. The NPD was shutdown in 1987; the nuclear fuel was removed from the site, along with non-radioactive equipment, leaving only the building shell and the nuclear components (reactor, tanks, pipes etc.) that had become radioactive in place to wait for further decommissioning. The facility has been waiting for final demolition and permanent disposal of the radioactive nuclear components for over 30 years.