It looks like a big-box store planted near an airport, but it's a top-secret military installation with connections to wartime bombings, Cold War intrigue and counterterrorism surveillance in a new age of anxiety.

And through much of it all, the station outside the central Newfoundland airport town of Gander has been known by a funny name: the Turkey Farm.

'We used to get packages delivered there, through the Canada Post office, and it would say right on the box 'Turkey Farm.' And it would always come to us.'—Former commanding officer Ray Lebeau

"When people said, 'Why are they building that big fence around the operations building for?' we said, 'Well, it's to keep the turkeys in,'" said Ray Lebeau, who was the commanding officer at the installation in the 1990s.

"So it became fondly, in Gander, known as the Turkey Farm. We used to get packages delivered there, through the Canada Post office, and it would say right on the box 'Turkey Farm.' And it would always come to us."

The nickname comes from what appears to be a huge circular fence surrounding the building. However, it's not a fence at all, but an antenna. At 35 metres in height, it can eavesdrop just about anywhere in the world.

A key element in Canada's intelligence-gathering efforts for decades, the installation is still operating, although with just a fraction of its former staffing.

Hundreds worked in quiet surveillance effort

At the height of the Cold War, between 200 and 250 Canadian and U.S. soldiers worked there around the clock, listening for ships and planes in distress — but also quietly gathering intelligence.

Only eight soldiers remain on duty at the Turkey Farm, to maintain the equipment. The building, though, is still operational — the work of listening is now done at a Canadian Forces station in Ottawa.

"It was a sad day, I must say, when they took the flag down for the last time and folded it up," said Lebeau, who was the commander of 770 Squadron, as was it known up until automation kicked in almost a decade ago.

CBC Radio was recently granted access inside the installation — the first time any journalist was allowed inside.

Defence officials would not comment, though, on surveillance work that still takes place.

Played role in Bismarck sinking

Veterans of the installation have witnessed a great deal, including a milestone in the Second World War, as the then-new listening post provided critical intelligence that helped the Allies sink the German battleship Bismarck.

In 1941, months after the Gander airport opened, Jim Dempsey was a radio operator at the station.

"I was called up by the communication officer and he said, 'You've got the best bearing you'll ever take,' and he let it go at that," Dempsey told CBC News.

"It took me a few days to find out what the bearing was."

'There's always a need. Intelligence is the most crucial thing your country lives by, and that's what we believed. That's what I still believe.'—Former operations chief Ron Walsh

In subsequent years, Gander was part of a network that helped the Allies avoid Nazi subs and then watched the Russians as they flew to Cuba through the Cold War.

In 1995, the role of the station was given a public nod, when Brian Tobin, the federal fisheries minister of the day, acknowledged the station's work during the so-called Turbot War. Canada apprehended the Spanish trawler Estai off the coast of Newfoundland, and prosecuted it for illegal fishing.

The station had intercepted catch reports that the Estai was sending back to Spain — intelligence that gave Tobin the ammunition he needed to seize the vessel.

Ron Walsh, a former chief of operations, said the staff preferred to stay under the proverbial radar.

"We almost shot him," Walsh said with a chuckle.

"See, we didn't talk about it. Now, that's old hat … [but] when he got up and officially recognized us we were, 'Oh no, don't do this. We don't need to have people know this.'"

Intelligence role crucial: retired officer

Fred Dixon, a retired warrant officer, learned to speak Russian to help analyze the information he collected in locations such as Gander.

"I think it meant an awful lot. Most of the intelligence that we acquired — the intelligence that we acquired — went right to the prime minister. He was briefed on what was happening in other countries," said Dixon.

"It seemed like old news to us when we read it in the newspaper or Time magazine or wherever," he said.

Seventeen years after his retirement, Walsh has retained some of the Russian he learned. He also respects the work he and his colleagues have done.

"There's always a need. Intelligence is the most crucial thing your country lives by, and that's what we believed. That's what I still believe," he said.

"If people had listened to intelligence, how many things could have been avoided?" he added.