The George Johnston Museum is about to open a permanent exhibit that will show how the introduction of aeradio range technology during the Second World War changed the landscape and culture of Teslin forever.

Today, the museum is hosting an Aeradio Range Grand Opening Day where visitors can check out the exhibit in the 1941 white log building. They can also listen to longtime northerners talk about what Teslin was like in the 1940s and just how the aeradio system worked.

The Canadian Owner and Pilots Association Yukon are giving Teslin kids short plane rides from the airport.

Museum manager Sharron Chatterton recently explained how Teslin's aeradio range system worked.

She said that the station pumped out signals, or beams, to guide planes en route to Russia.

If a pilot was flying from Watson Lake to Teslin, he would guide the plane by first listening to the signals from the Watson Lake aeradio station. As the plane flew closer to Teslin, the pilot would pick up that station's signals.

"If they were absolutely dead-on route, the beeping would stop and pilots would hear a single monotone sound,” said Chatterton. "When they flew directly over top of the building, the sound would stop.”

Teslin's station was built in 1941. It was part of the Northwest Staging Route, a string of aeradio range stations – from Grande Prairie, Alta. through the Yukon and to Alaska – constructed as a navigation aid for planes flying from the U.S. to Russia.

Doug Bell, who worked as a radio operator at range stations throughout the Northwest Staging Route, explained that each station had five, 125-foot steel towers to emit signals.

For Bell, working at range station was "fascinating.”

Pilots would call you and you had to know everything, from weather conditions to traffic on the airstrips, he said. The former commissioner of the Yukon also remembers the chaos of being constantly surrounded by 18 loud speakers, each dedicated to a particular frequency. He planned to speak on this subject at today's grand opening celebration.

Chatterton said that even though the military technologies coming to Teslin were exciting, you can't ignore the fact that the changes happened to a sleepy paddle wheeler village in northern Canada – and quickly.

She called this a "seminal point” in Teslin's history.

"Suddenly, there were surveyors and planes and new highways and bridges being built everywhere,” said Chatterton.

For locals, it must have been a mixed reaction of horror and fascination, she said.

"It was an explosion of noise and equipment. Everything that was there was totally and utterly disregarded,” said Chatterton. "It was just one gash after another.”

The George Johnston Museum took a survey of all the buildings in Teslin in 2005, and decided that although the white log building may have been the least interesting to look at, it was perhaps the most important to restore and share with the community from a historical perspective.

Workers used what Chatterton described as "huge, colossal trucks” to transport the building to the George Johnston Museum, where it sits now. The exhibit is located inside the building and includes photographs text and artifacts.

"There's nothing like it in Canada, or the whole world, that we know of,” said Chatterton.

The formal opening of the aeradio range exhibit took place early this afternoon, when the replica George Johnston car arrived.

Bell and Paul Keenan planned to speak about Teslin history, and the aeradio technology exhibit's grand opening ribbon was slated to be cut.

The Dominion Day Tea celebration was set for the Recplex.